Since the earliest days of the space program, NASA has been refining the garb its astronauts don during missions. NASA’s current suit, the Advanced Crew Escape System (ACES), is worn by astronauts during both the launch and reentry portions of the mission. While making space walks, astronauts switch over to the Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU), a bulkier suit that’s essentially a life support vehicle.
The problem facing NASA’s designers is that while the EMU gives astronauts the ability to work in the vacuum of space it is too large to fit into the agency’s new, compact Orion spacecraft.
To gain the compactness and flexibility needed for asteroid and deep space exploration, NASA has turned to the ACES module and will use it as the departure point for its new suit.
"The shell of them is very much the same, and to the casual user you may not even notice the difference, but internally we modified them to work with the plumbing inside Orion," said Dustin Gohmert, Crew Survival Systems Manager at Johnson.
In recent tests at the NBL, NASA’s designers have been examining what features need to be included and improved to give the ACES suit greater mobility. Among the many changes that will be built into the suit are a set of enhanced gloves and more flexible elbow joints.
As missions to the Moon, Mars and an asteroid come ever closer to their launch date, improvements to the ACES suit are sure to accumulate. By building upon previously tested designs, NASA can be sure that their legacy of successful space ventures will continue into the distant future – and possibly beyond our own solar system.
Images and Video Courtesy of NASA