NASA's Z-1 Prototype Spacesuit Is Beginning To Look More Like Buzz Lightyear
NASA has finished testing its Z-1 prototype spacesuit. The Z-1 spacesuit, which was first revealed in July, was praised for its versatility. Today, we are looking at the rough final design of the prototype. Read more
A NASA team has tested a space suit in a setting with extreme conditions akin to some of those found on Mars -- an Argentine base in Antarctica -- for possible use on a visit to the Red Planet. The NDX-1 space suit, designed by Argentine aerospace engineer Pablo de Leon, endured frigid temperatures and winds of more than 47 mph as researchers tried out techniques for collecting soil samples on Mars. Read more
If NASA returns to the moon in 2020 as planned, astronauts will step out in a brand-new space suit. It will give them new mobility and flexibility on the lunar surface while still protecting them from its harsh environment. The suit will also be able to sustain life for up to 150 hours and will even be equipped with a computer that links directly back to Earth. The new design will also let astronauts work outside of the International Space Station (ISS) and will be suitable for trips to Mars, as outlined in NASA's program for exploration, called Constellation.
"The current suits just cannot do everything we need them to do. We have a completely new design, something that has never been done before" - Terry Hill, the Constellation space suit engineering project manager at NASA's Johnson Space Centre in Houston.
Shrink-to-fit spacesuit Forget the complex choreography involved in putting on a spacesuit: astronauts will one day be able to get suited and booted in seconds by stepping through the neck of an overlarge, part-robotic spacesuit. So say engineers David Akin and Shane Jacobs at the University of Maryland in College Park. Once you're inside the baggy suit, its upper torso contracts using pneumatic artificial muscles to ensure a perfect fit.
New analysis could lead to better lunar, Mars spacesuits Anyone who has watched videos of the Apollo astronauts moving across the surface of the moon has noticed the unusual loping gait they sometimes adopted and their slow, almost graceful, movements. Now a new analysis by MIT researchers shows why astronauts moved around this way in their heavy Apollo-era space suits - and provides a mathematical method for evaluating new spacesuit designs for the moon and Mars and their effects on the efficiency of locomotion.
Try working on your car dressed for a freezing day, wearing roller skates and oven mitts, and standing upside down. That's how astronauts describe doing anything in a bulky space suit, the wardrobe of choice in orbit. With its pressurized atmosphere, life support and heavy insulation, the typical space suit makes even the easiest job cumbersome, like trying to change a spark plug while wearing a straitjacket. But next-generation astronauts could shed their armour and limited range of motion for a new style in cosmic fashion: the BioSuit.
The new outfits represent a giant leap for space fashion and are a far cry from the bulky gas-pressured suits currently used. The spandex and nylon BioSuit, designed by engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US, will stretch over the body and allow complete freedom of movement. Instead of using gas pressurisation to protect astronauts from the vacuum of space, the new suit relies on tight layers of material wrapped around the body. If the BioSuit suffers a small meteorite puncture, it can easily be bandaged and repaired.
In the 40 years humans have been travelling into space, the suits they wear have changed very little. The bulky, gas-pressurized outfits give astronauts a bubble of protection, but their significant mass and the pressure itself severely limit mobility. Dava Newman, professor of aeronautics and astronautics and engineering systems at MIT, wants to change that.
Astronauts of the future will swap their heavy, cumbersome spacesuits for skin-tight "Barbarella-style" outfits. Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are developing a new generation of light, flexible spacesuits, which they hope will be ready for use in ten years' time. The development of the "bio-suit" will mean astronauts can finally abandon the bulky high-pressure suits, which are difficult to move in and make space-walking awkward and tiring.