Collins Aerospace tests its new spacesuit on the Zero Gravity airplane
On January 30, 2024 Collins Aerospace, one of two companies that NASA has contracted to design and build new spacesuits for its future missions, successfully tested its new spacesuit on the Zero Gravity airplane, where it was able to have a person use the suit in short but weightless conditions.
Collins is designing its suit in collaboration with ILC Dover and Oceaneering. Former NASA astronauts, John “Danny” Olivas and Dan Burbank, each donned the suit and performed a series of test objectives while onboard a Zero Gravity plane that’s able to perform parabolic maneuvers to simulate microgravity for short bursts. They were surrounded by several support personnel who were gathering data about the suit performance.
In total, they performed 40 parabolas during the flight. Collins said the primary goals included “evaluation of the suit’s pressure garment system fit and functionality, use of International Space Station tools and interfaces, and reviewed performance of the new Extravehicular Mobility Unit, or EMU, against the current design.”
The two spacesuit contracts (the second is with Axiom) are costing NASA about $335 million total to get the suits designed, built, and certified for use in spacewalks and ground operations on the Moon. Both companies appear on schedule to deliver those suits in less than three years.
Previously, NASA had tried to build new spacesuits on its own, and had spent a billion dollars over fourteen years while building nothing. The contrast in this story between the government and private enterprise should be clarifying to everyone.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
On January 30, 2024 Collins Aerospace, one of two companies that NASA has contracted to design and build new spacesuits for its future missions, successfully tested its new spacesuit on the Zero Gravity airplane, where it was able to have a person use the suit in short but weightless conditions.
Collins is designing its suit in collaboration with ILC Dover and Oceaneering. Former NASA astronauts, John “Danny” Olivas and Dan Burbank, each donned the suit and performed a series of test objectives while onboard a Zero Gravity plane that’s able to perform parabolic maneuvers to simulate microgravity for short bursts. They were surrounded by several support personnel who were gathering data about the suit performance.
In total, they performed 40 parabolas during the flight. Collins said the primary goals included “evaluation of the suit’s pressure garment system fit and functionality, use of International Space Station tools and interfaces, and reviewed performance of the new Extravehicular Mobility Unit, or EMU, against the current design.”
The two spacesuit contracts (the second is with Axiom) are costing NASA about $335 million total to get the suits designed, built, and certified for use in spacewalks and ground operations on the Moon. Both companies appear on schedule to deliver those suits in less than three years.
Previously, NASA had tried to build new spacesuits on its own, and had spent a billion dollars over fourteen years while building nothing. The contrast in this story between the government and private enterprise should be clarifying to everyone.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Initial testing in a zero-g aircraft is good.
One wonders why in this era of easy access to LEO that the suits are not then sent to the ISS for testing inside the ISS as a means to experience prolonged microgravity. Not suggesting that they be used outside the ISS yet.
But I would observe that it would be nice to have a station in orbit that had a very large airlock to permit operation of larger pieces of experimental or in development equipment in microgravity and vacuum but still in a somewhat controlled situation.
I will also observe that if we were truly in a hurry to advance our capabilities in space, we would rapidly take such systems for test drives in space and then use ’em..
It is interesting that for Gemini the decision to take what was know about Spacesuits and develop a suit family (G4) that would allow one or more variants to be EVA capable.
That decision was made in May of 1962 and in June of 1965 Ed White did his space walk in a G4C suit. Within 14 months 4 more EVAs were made with variations on the G4C suit.
That is what being in a hurry looks like.
Doubting Thomas: It is for the very reasons you outline that I cannot wait for multiple private space stations to reach orbit. You can bet that they will offer their stations to spacesuit companies like Collins for testing, and you can bet those spacesuit companies will take advantage of that offer to speed and refine development.
Asking NASA at ISS to do it is unrealistic. Not only is the ageny too bureaucratic, making new research projects difficult if not impossible to approve, the station simply doesn’t have enough capacity. Not enough docking ports for additional missions, and not enough cargo transport capacity for transporting test spacesuits.
And of course SpaceX Is developing their own EVA suit, since they had a paying customer who needed one. (The details and complexity of a moon/mars/EVA suit can be radically different I know, nonetheless, there is some commonality to the basics.).
I can not wait for the time we no longer need full bodied soft suits for space walks.
We really have no need for the two legs,they could just be a solid tube.
The arms would be the next to get rid of to be replaced by fully robotic arms and hands mimicking our own. First with our arms inside and eventually without.
Then we just need to get rid of the person and go fully robotic.
With 3d head gear and a good sensor set the astronaut could control it from inside the station or space craft.
pzatchok: continuing your logic, then why does the controller need to be in orbit at all?
The ISS robotic arm can already be controlled from the ground.