When a spacesuit is not a spacesuit

NASA needs a new suit for spacewalks and the Moon

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The mission is big- go back to the moon to stay and live and on new space stations too. To do all this, NASA desperately needs new spacesuits. But the agency, according to its Inspector General, has stumbled badly. In the coming weeks NASA will make a major change in direction. First, let’s talk about spacesuits.

The STS-118 crew members exit the Operations and Checkout Building in August 2007. (Credit: NASA)

The pictures showing astronauts walking out of a building to a van that will carry them to the launch pad are iconic. Each astronaut is suited up for flight. Their garments are called spacesuits. They are really pressure suits that are worn for takeoff and landing to protect the astronaut in the unusual case that their vehicle loses pressure. They are generally called IVA suits (intravehicular activity).

Artist rendering of inflated ACES suit. (Credit: NASA)

"GET ME DOWN SUITS"

IVA suits are designed for the pressurized, climate-controlled, spacecraft. Legendary retired NASA spacesuit expert Joe Kosmo told me he calls them “get me down suits.” In case of an emergency depressurization (think about those oxygen masks that are set to deploy in a jetliner), the IVA suit provides enough protection to get back down to earth. During the shuttle era you may remember the “pumpkin suits” that were officially known as the ACES, Advanced Crew Escape System, which served this purpose.

EVA SPACESUITS

If an astronaut is to venture out of that spacecraft, a much more resilient suit is needed. It’s called an EVA (extravehicular activity) suit. I got a close-up look at Neil Armstrong’s suit worn on the surface of the moon. These suits have to do so much more than the IVA suits. As astronauts will tell you, the EVA suits are mini-spacecrafts, keeping them safe in the harsh environment of space.

The Smithsonian refurbished Neil Armstrong's EVA suit. (Credit: ABC News)

EVA suits protect astronauts from the extreme temperatures of space, micrometeorites that could puncture the suit, while providing a full life-support system. The only EVA suits NASA currently has are those on the International Space Station (ISS). They are called EMUs (Extravehicular Mobility Unit). The sell-by date of these suits expired long ago.

NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy, Expedition 36 flight engineer, attired in an Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) spacesuit in July 2013. (Credit: NASA)

TROUBLED SUIT DEVELOPMENT

As the NASA Office of the Inspector General reported last year, astronauts use these suits that were, “designed 45 years ago for the Space Shuttle Program and rely on these refurbished and partially redesigned spacesuits for extravehicular activities on the ISS.” The EMUs are getting the job done. Kjell Lindgren, the commander of the Crew-4 mission set to launch to the ISS in the coming days, told me the EMUs are a “modern miracle of engineering.” Still, they need an upgrade.

Crew-4 Commander Kjell Lindgren talks about the EMUs on the International Space Station. (Credit: NASA)

This effort to build an EVA suit is where NASA has had so much trouble. Just about every spacesuit since Apollo has been built by an outside contractor and handed over to NASA to operate and service. But in 2016, according to the OIG, NASA decided to bring development in-house and has spent a total of $420 million, yet, “as of July 2021, none of these efforts have resulted in a flight-ready spacesuit.”

$1 BILLION

A little more than a year earlier the NASA Administrator unveiled what he said was the suit that would go to the moon. The OIG estimated that if NASA continued on that course it would cost $1 billion to produce working suits.

(Credit: NASA)

After this OIG report was released, NASA reversed course late last year. Rather than building suits in-house, NASA is close to picking a company, or companies, to build, own and service the suits. NASA will in essence rent spacesuits for its astronauts (brings to mind the tuxedo store) under a “service contract.”

NASA WILL NOW "RENT" SUITS

In a statement NASA told me it is, “committed to partnering with private industry,” adding, “we look forward to continuing that commitment with the upcoming award(s) announcement for the development of the new spacesuit.”

NASA's xEMU concept suit. (Credit: NASA)

That selection is expected at the end of this month. NASA will work in-house on “risk reduction” with testing of the suit design known as the xEMU. The Exploration EMU is to be used on the surface of planetary bodies as well as spacewalks.

Why has this process been so expensive and difficult? Joe Kosmo had some thoughts more than a decade ago. That is the next newsletter.

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