Questions tagged [eva]
Extra-Vehicular Activity (EVA, or sometimes called "spacewalking") involves donning a space suit and leaving whatever vehicle you are in. Common reasons are repairing or maintaining said vehicle, but can include exploring the space or celestial object near your vehicle.
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Do ISS astronauts have a preference for when EVA tasks are scheduled with respect to lighting conditions?
Given the choice, do ISS astronauts prefer to schedule EVA tasks on the “day light” side of the ISS, the “shadow" side of the ISS or in the shadow of Earth’s night side?
I suspect the intense, ...
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Do cold gas thrusters fueled by supercritical CO2 have a higher Isp than those fueled by liquid CO2?
The private space company Pixar has developed an autonomous space vehicle (Wall-e) propelled by a cold gas thruster Hand-Held Maneuvering Unit as demonstrated in this press release:
From https://...
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Spacewalk From Earth To Luna [closed]
A question that I have not seen but have been curious about…… I have a little bit above average (I think) of how gravity works or what gravity is but can’t figure this out; Let’s pretend that we make ...
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Draper Labs' Control Moment Gyroscope Spacesuit
Back in 2013/2014 Draper Laboratory announced that they were designing and testing a "spacesuit jetpack" that employed control moment gyroscopes (CMG) to allow astronauts to preform EVAs ...
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Have astronauts ever used the helmet-to-helmet technique to talk to one another in vacuum?
Science Fiction has long written about this communication technique in vacuum: Astronauts touch their helmet against another astronaut's helmet, so that sound will transmit through that physical ...
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Were analog cameras been used in orbital space during an EVA after Apollo?
Analog cameras have been used intensively on the Moon and inside orbital space stations or ships.
Were analog cameras ever used during an EVA outside Spacelab, Mir, ISS or Space Shuttle? In zero ...
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What is the purpose of these three taut cables near an ISS astronaut during EVA? To what do they connect and why do two appear intertwined?
During CBS News senior space analyst Bill Harwood's explanations in the video Russia's space agency severs ties with the U.S. and its European partners they keep showing the same five seconds of an ...
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Do Bernoulli grippers work in a vacuum?
This may be an all-time stupid question, but do Bernoulli grippers work in a vacuum? It’s pretty obvious suction cups won’t work.
Bernoulli grippers use compressed air to create a suction cup-like ...
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Why do EVA suits have legs?
Why do EVA suits have legs?
Planetary exploration suits (PES) obviously need legs. Spacesuits with legs are “a classic icon of human space exploration” and a requirement for mobility. https://www....
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Pressurized gloves have significant limitations. What are objective advantages/disadvantages of the alternatives? [closed]
Conventional EVA suits suffer from mobility and tactile sensory limitations due to their pressurization. Any articulated container which changes volume with motion will resist motion if pressurized. ...
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When cis-lunar Artemis astronauts and folks on Earth communicate via audio (e.g. EVAs) will they still step on each other's words like during Apollo?
It's been fifty years since we've heard astronauts and ground folks talk over each other ("step on each other" in 1970's CB radio parlance). Sitting on the floor a few feet away from our ...
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Which S-Band ISS antenna stopped transmitting to TDRS and was replaced during the recent 2021-12-02 EVA?
CNN's says:
Marshburn and Barron began their spacewalk at 6:15 a.m. ET, and it's expected to last for about six and a half hours. The team will replace a malfunctioning communications antenna.
Live ...
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How could Shuttle orbiter with internal airlock dock with ISS or other space stations and were internal airlocks used for missions with spacelabs?
As you can see in this animation
time 11:45 >, during latter Shuttle missions EVA airlock was placed in payload bay and used both for docking with ISS (with orbital ...
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Could one survive a ride into orbit outside a rocket?
Another question asked whether a Falcon 9 class rocket could reach orbit with a person (-like mass) duct-taped to the outside of it, in spite of the resulting mass asymmetry. The consensus of one ...
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With an external airlock attached, could Commercial Crew Program spacecraft service Hubble?
Note just to clarify: is not about the requirements of the Commercial Crew Program, it is about the as-built capabilities of Crew Dragon and Starliner (hereafter referred to as CCPS, CCP (not that one)...
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Can I survive long enough before being rescued, naked in space? [duplicate]
If I float in space naked, what will be the consequence for my wellbeing? What will happen to my skin? What will happen to my body due to the zero pressure surrounding me? Will the air be sucked from ...
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What are the "Big 13" critical contingency spacewalks on the ISS? Have any actually been performed?
There is a list of Critical Contingency items on the US side of the International Space Station called the "Big 13". The failure of any of these items would force an unscheduled spacewalk ...
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How big are Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) boots?
How big are Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) boots? Are any NASA equipment related to the ISS open to the public, if so were where would I find it?
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Did Skylab astronauts really "go outside" to look at comet Kohoutek? If so, why?
Today in The BBC's Skylab: The myth of the mutiny in space it says:
The Skylab space station was a research platform in orbit where astronauts helped scientists to study the human body's response to ...
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Do ISS crews have to worry about the ionosphere? Have hazards to EVAs or surface arcing/functional anomalies happened due to ionospheric charing?
Comments below this answer tell us that the International Space Station always remained in Earth's atmosphere. It orbits in the thermosphere and simultaneously the ionosphere.
This answer to How do ...
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Novel EVA spacesuit designs
I'm looking for a collection of novel EVA suit designs, which are serious (are more than a mere art station create)
There is of course the BioSuit: 1, 2.
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What was the "5 minute EVA"? What was the shortest-duration EVA ever?
A comment to this answer makes the claim
humans are so impaired in space that their ability to repair anything is ridiculously low (hours of preparation and debriefing even for a five-minute EVA, and ...
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What EVA activities were planned for STS-80?
On 29 November 1996, during the STS-80 mission, a planned EVA by Tammy Jernigan and Tom Jones had to be abandoned because the astronauts were unable to open the outer airlock hatch. A second EVA later ...
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Is there anything preventing an astronaut from opening their helmet and exposing themself to the vacuum of space?
Say an astronaut had some sort of psychotic break during a spacewalk, is there any mechanism or failsafe that would prevent the astronaut from opening their helmet and exposing themself to the vacuum ...
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Earth’s Orbit speed and apparent motion question
Earth travels around the Sun at 67,000 mph. Hypothetically if it was possible to be in Space in a ship or Space walk and be at a complete stop and stationary outside of Earth’s orbit and not affected ...
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Can space suit gloves hear, feel, or otherwise sense information through augmentation? Will they?
@mdouglasbibbey's answer describes a situation where it was impossible to "hear" = feel important information while working on Hubble during an EVA, including haptic feedback when a quick ...
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Are there really "Dead End" signs on the outside of the International Space Station?
This question currently links to the NASA video Expedition 63 Inflight interview with Yahoo Finance KPRC TV - July 24, 2020 at 07:46 where a few seconds later ...
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Specifications on ISS EVA suit cameras
The suits that astronauts use to preform EVA's on the ISS have some sort of "TV camera" with which they stream analog video back to the ISS and then back to Earth so that we can see it on ...
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A Parmitano ‘maneuver’
Referring to the 2013 incident when Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano suffered a leak in his EVA suit causing water to build up dangerously around his face. By the time he was approaching the airlock, ...
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Plans for HUD in next-generation spacesuits
A HUD (Head Up Display) allows a computer to display information directly into a user's line of sight and thus allows them to interface with that computer without needing to look at a tablet or ...
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Can an astronaut have a private communication during a spacewalk?
In this NASA page it describes an astronaut remaining in contact during an EVA.
While inside these pressurized suits, it's essential that they (the astronauts) remain in constant communication ...
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Did Ed White, on his Gemini 4 spacewalk, have to release pressure from his suit to reenter the capsule?
I'm reading the book Das kleines Handbuch für angehende Raumfahrer ("The Little Handbook for Budding Space Travelers") by the Doctors Bergita and Urs Ganse. I generally like it. They got a few little ...
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What sounds do astronauts hear inside their helmets during an EVA?
Besides the communications over the headsets, do astronauts hear any other sounds inside their helmets? Do they hear their own breath? Are there any mechanical sounds audible? Does the circulating ...
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Is it possible to create an overridable inflatable airlock seal?
If the information I obtained is correct, inflatable airlocks are sealed by the air pressure and cannot be unlocked unless the pressure is lowered(correct me if I'm wrong).
Additionally, airlocks ...
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Do any spacesuit designs (including prototypes, conceptual, etc) use radiators rather than open-loop cooling?
Answers to: How have space suits dissipated the heat removed from astronauts? explain how USA suits currently use open-loop cooling.
Typically, space suits must dissipate several hundred watts of heat ...
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What are the "25 bespoke tools (that) had to be developed" to install a new coolant system for the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS)?
The 2020 Jan/Feb issue of the CERN Courier has an astronaut on its front cover and on the next page From the Editor begins:
It’s not often that CERN Courier has the opportunity to feature an ...
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If you fell into a crater on the moon in your spacesuit and no jetpack, is there a way to use low gravity to get out of the hole?
If you fell down a crater or hole on the moon, is there a way to exploit microgravity/low gravity to get to the top? Lets say your survived a fall into Aristarchus crater on the moon with a slow slide ...
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Could moon ice be used to fuel a steam powered jetpack for EVA in space or high altitude exploration on the moon?
For long term moon operations, would it be practical to have a jetpack that used steam as a source for EVA on the moon surface and above it in orbit?
I imagine a scenario where lunar ice deposits ...
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How badly would commodity handheld power tools, with cheap "duct tape" modifications, work in (EVA) space?
Popular articles about the handheld power tools used on EVA by astronauts usually focus substantially on how much specialized engineering goes into making these tools. And there definitely are a lot ...
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In layman's terms, how hot will the skin of a spacecraft become, 144 million miles from the Sun?
Ok, last week I asked how hot would a piece of metal become at a distance from Earth to Mars facing the Sun. Thank you for all the nice replies, but I do not have much math knowledge. So let me ...
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Can astronauts in currently planned pressure suits survive a cabin which cannot be repressurized?
Imagine the Crew Dragon (or Stariner or Orion) has just achieved orbit. Due to a manufacturing flaw or a meteor, the window suddenly blows out. All 6 of the crew manages to get their suit visor's ...
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What are "applied moments of inertia" in the context of STS-61B's EASE/ACCESS?
This answer links to https://history.nasa.gov/spacesuits.pdf which shows the image below. (fyi Wikipedia's STS-61 is not to be confused with STS-61A, STS-61B or STS-61C, see answers to Why so many STS-...
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SpaceX Crew Dragon depressurization for emergency EVA
As far as I know, the Crew Dragon does not have an airlock. Therefore, if astronauts inside needed to go outside for some reason, they'd need to suit up, depressurize the cabin, and then they'd be ...
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How much of a drag is it, orbiting the Earth in a space suit?
An astronaut in a spacesuit travels around the Earth at the same altitude as the ISS. Let's say the astronaut leads the ISS by 1000 meters along the same orbit.
After one orbit, how much velocity has ...
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How to estimate which astronaut ends up furthest from the ISS after one orbit?
Three astronauts; Goofus, Gallant and Zippy the Pinhead play a game. All three take their cold gas thruster-powered jet packs and quickly move 100 meters away from the ISS. For some reason after ...
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Does the speed of ISS slow down at the time of a spacewalk or does it become stationary?
The International Space Station (ISS) is orbiting at nearly 7.66 km/s. At such high speeds, how do astronauts perform tasks outside the ISS? Or is it all relative like astronauts are having same speed ...
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Are deep-space EVAs part of the Artemis plan?
During Apollos 15, 16, and 17, the first deep-space EVAs were performed to retrieve film canisters from the exterior of the vehicle while in translunar space on the way home, producing what is, ...
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Are there other "glow in the dark" Luminex wire and light-emitting patch designs for the Z-2 or any other space suit?
The prototype Z-2 space suit has different light-emitting patches to make it easier to identify specific crew members during a spacewalk. NASA has released these three designs.
image source
image ...
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Are the Electronic Tools used in the ISS and in the NBL same or different?
Most of the time, we see astronauts carrying electronic tools like power drills during an EVA. They undergo training in the Neutral Buoyancy Lab (NBL) for the same. Are the electronic tools used in ...
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Are the EVA suits used in the ISS and in the NBL same or different?
Are the space suits used in the International Space Station (ISS) and in the Neutral Buoyancy Lab (NBL) same or different? They look similar, but they are used in two different media - one in a vacuum ...
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