Questions tagged [spacesuits]
Questions regarding the spacesuits that astronauts wear whilst in space
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Could you skim along the Karman line using a parafoil?
Imagine a person just wearing a spacesuit equipped with a parafoil returning from low orbit. Could they maintain altitude starting at 7.8 km/s above or along the Karman line slowly losing speed—maybe ...
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Time to prepare for EVA out of ISS
How much time is needed to an astronaut on ISS to prepare herself for an EVA? Is this time so much different from time needed during Apollo missions?
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What do I use to make a Neck Ring?
I’ve been working on a homemade space suit, and I’ve been trying to figure out on what to use to make a neck ring. But so far I can’t really find anything, Does anyone know what I could use for the ...
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Why do the SpaceX suits require "drying" during the mission?
In the period when the Crew Dragon Demo-2 mission was initially docking with the ISS, before the hatches were open, one of the tasks was to "dry the suits". They reported on the status later, ...
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What are the technical differences between AxEMU and xEMU?
On March 15, 2023, Axiom Space sort-of unveiled their lunar spacesuit, based on the NASA xEMU. I say sort-of because apparently, though the Axiom suit is selected for Artemis III, missions following ...
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Are SpaceX new space suits inferior to existing ones in terms of usability?
There is an article in Russian "Why do the American space suits look so different from Russian ones?" which claims that the new SpaceX suits are designed for looks, and have several issues, which, ...
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For how long could astronauts stay on the surface of Europa, Jupiter's moon, with our current latest and most advanced spacesuit before dying?
Is it possible for astronauts to land on Europa safely?
Given the fact that radiation level on Europa is about 5.4 Sv (or about 540 rem) per day and the temperature is around -260 °F (or about -160 °C)...
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Lead lined Martian suit
Despite having to transport a significant amount of mass to Mars, would lead lined environment suits be viable, to provide cosmic radiation shielding for Martian colonists?
Would carrying that extra ...
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How to repressurize a vacuum chamber really fast?
There was an accident during a suit test in a vacuum chamber on December 14, 1966. The suit lost pressure and
The chamber – which would normally take 30 minutes to repressurized –
was blasted back to ...
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Spacesuit with no thermal insulation. Would person inside freeze or overheat?
Let us say I have a theoretical super thin spacesuit which has zero thermal insulation. As if person would be naked in space, but all other variables - pressure, oxygen, food and other life support ...
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What policies and capabilities are in place to induce hypothermia for the purpose of reducing hypoxic brain damage in EVA depressurization?
Depressurization incidents during EVA will have hypoxia as the ultimate cause of death or permanent brain damage. If an astronaut’s brain is deprived of oxygen, irreparable damage occurs after about 4 ...
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Why is the new Artemis suit orange?
In the picture it shows two different suits. Why did NASA color one orange just like they did with the space shuttle astronaut suits?
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Space Suit for Artemis, why two contracts instead of only one?
NASA has selected two companies to make spacesuits for its Artemis moon program and future International Space Station (ISS) missions.
Teams led by Axiom Space and Collins Aerospace (with ILC Dover ...
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What factors affect the thickness of EVA spacesuits?
Most current extravehicular activity spacesuits are very thick and chunky, like EMU or Orlan. Even though NASA/MIT work on something thinner (Bio Suit), it's not for EVA in vacuum of space, but for ...
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What are Virgin Galactic Space Suits for? What do they do? What don't they do?
In the CNN video linked below the reporter mentions to Unity 22's Astronaut 004 Sirisha Bandla:
When people think of Virgin Galactic, they’re thinking of giving people new astronaut wings like the ...
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How are Rotating Joints in a Spacesuit Gas-tight?
In Spacesuits, especially in newer ones like the Exploration Extravehicular Mobility Unit (xEMU), there are a large number of rotating joints at different portions like wrists, arms, torso, etc.
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How can space suits hold a pressure when they're handsewn?
Whenever I saw a clip about making spacesuits they always emphasized that space suits, since day one, were sewn by-hand at some particular company in Delaware.
How can handsewn anything maintain 5 psi?...
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Why the Snoopy Cap rather than a conventional headset?
Why do American astronauts wear the "snoopy cap" elastic hood with communications headset rather than a more conventional style of headset that doesn't have a hood? Does the cap provide ...
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Why is there a white panel in astronaut’s fabric headcover they wear inside the hard helmet?
Astronauts always have a black fabric headcover worn over their hair or scalp, when they are wearing the spacesuit and helmet for takeoff or EVAs. There’s always a white panel that looks about 3 ...
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How can space suit gloves be improved?
Gloves on space suits are hard to use because of their high gas pressure relative to the surrounding vacuum. It's simply strenuous to bend the fingers and astronauts are even said to lose their nails ...
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What's the normal leakage rate for a space suit?
What's the normal leakage rate for a space suit?
For a modern (as in, the model is still in use today) EVA suit in normal condition, undamaged, etc.
If there is a wide variation in leak rates for ...
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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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What does "double vacuum pressure" mean in space-suit testing?
There was news of the new SpaceX space suit in Reddit and now a mention in Elon Musk's Instagram where he says:
First picture of SpaceX spacesuit. More in days to follow. Worth noting that this ...
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Are the materials presently available to make the SpaceX space suit?
In earlier human space missions we have seen space suits which are really bulky and big in size. But in recent news we saw the latest design by SpaceX, which are seems less bulky and slim as well.
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Moon Suit to be used for the Artemis III mission?
The Moon landing mission Artemis III is scheduled for launch in 2025. It will be the first Lunar crewed mission after Apollo.
What is the development state of the moon suit to be used for moonwalks ...
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Astronauts make a lot of CH₄ and some H₂ as well; do space capsules and space stations have systems to remove these?
While not as much as ruminants, humans emit methane, CH4, natural gas, etc. regularly. While it is less known, we can also emit hydrogen as H2.
What are the sources of molecular hydrogen in human ...
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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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Did an astronaut on the Moon ever fall on his back?
I am curious to know if an astronaut on the Moon ever fell backwards and landed on his back. I have seen many photographs and videos of astronauts who accidentally tripped or lost their balance and ...
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Do you need to operate laptop computers to run the ISS SSRMS robots Canadarm2 & Dextre? What if there's a pressure loss and you're wearing a suit?
Comments and to some extent the current answer to If an ISS emergency requires pressure suits temporarily, can they still use the laptops? Move the cursor? address a highly unlikely scenario where a ...
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How did astronauts tie the laces on their gloves?
I've been looking through images from the Smithsonian regarding early space exploration. In particular, I found this picture of a spacesuit glove, that has laces on it. In the picture's description, ...
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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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Non-biological end effectors (hands) in spacesuit design
Designing the 'end effectors' or gloves of a spacesuit is notoriously difficult. Hands have are extremely flexible and are the primary interface that humans use to interact physically with the world.
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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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Why aren't spacecraft and spacesuits pressurised to 2.5 psi (17 kPa) of pure oxygen?
Today 1 atm (101.3 kPa, 14.7 psi) with sea level composition is most commonly used on spacecraft to avoid fire hazards like in Apollo 1 (not that it would have helped the Apollo 1 crew as they couldn'...
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What are the Advantages of having a Double-pane Space Helmet?
In the following image of Exploration Extravehicular Mobility Unit (xEMU) or Artemis Generation Space Suit, it can be seen the helmet contains double-pane of glass (inside the black rectangle)
What ...
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How long can astronauts wearing Dragon capsule suits walk around unconnected to water coolers?
At various moments in the NASA video NASA’s SpaceX Crew-3 Astronauts Launch to the Space Station astronauts are shown standing or walking or otherwise posing for the camera in their Dragon capsule ...
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How does it feel to breathe 100% oxygen at low pressure?
Some space suits are designed to provide an atmosphere of 100% oxygen but at a reduced air pressure about 20% that of sea level.
Is breathing in such a suit uncomfortable? It seems like having such a ...
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Experience of breathing regular air vs. Nitrox vs pure oxygen at 4.3 psi?
Has any astronaut/cosmonaut described a difference in the feeling of breathing pure oxygen at 4.3 psi in a spacesuit compared breathing regular air at sea level or even to Nitrox used in the Neutral ...
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Could you "hose wash" a space suit on the Moon or Mars?
There are some concerns about Lunar dust attaching to the space suits during the Apollo missions. So Suitports are being developed. On Earth, cars get pretty dirty too, but a car wash solves that. ...
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What is the text on Neil Armstrong's space suit's left glove?
I was looking at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's collection, and Neil Armstrong's Apollo 11 spacesuit has some text written on the left glove. It looks like some sort of instructions, ...
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What was the first Soviet/Russian spacesuit to use closed-loop ventilation?
The spacesuit used for the first spacewalk used open-loop ventilation, venting exhaust gases into space:
On reaching orbit in Voskhod 2, Leonov and Belyayev attached the EVA backpack to Leonov's ...
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What spacesuit helmet is this?
There's a classic series of black-and-white photos from the mid-80s showing early shuttle astronaut Anna Fisher in a helmet; one was reportedly on the cover of Life magazine.
Image source: reddit, ...
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How far are space-walking helmet faceplates from the eyes? How far will I have to hold my "space binoculars" from my eyes during a space walk?
I'm on a space walk and comet Kohoutek is passing by and I've brought my specially designed space binoculars with me to look at it.
I left my Nikon Monarch 8x42 binoculars inside because with an eye ...
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Atmosphere inside a space capsule and need for spacesuits
Was the internal atmosphere of Mercury capsule and CSMs of Apollo missions filled with pure oxygen at low pressure, and was the ambiance controlled to match closely to that on earth (e.g. humidity, ...
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Will suits worn on Mars lose kilograms of "expendable water" each time they are used?
In this excellent answer to How have space suits dissipated the heat removed from astronauts? I learned that space suits from the Apollo missions and even when used in space walks from the ISS today ...
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In simple terms, how does the way space suits manage breathable gas differ from how scuba gear does it?
I say "breathable gas" because what's in the tank can be a variety of mixtures and I don't know a single word for gas mixture you can safely breathe.
less scientific or clinical sounding ...
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Would've the CO2 scrubbers failed before the O2 supply ran out during an Apollo moonwalk?
This absurd video on Reddit of the Earth blowing up while Apollo astronauts were walking on the Moon got me thinking.
Assuming something catastrophic happened to the Lunar Module the moment the two ...
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Where exactly are the Apollo space suit sublimators venting steam into space? is there a photo of an astronaut in space that shows the opening?
This excellent answer to How have space suits dissipated the heat removed from astronauts? shows a diagram including the sublimator unit in the red square where the phase transition of water from ...
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How have space suits dissipated the heat removed from astronauts?
I never thought about this until reading the comments below this answer. To radiate something like 150W (a very conservative lower limit of human + suit systems heat production - see @Uwe 's comment ...
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How was the "female" SK-2 different from the "male" SK-1 spacesuit?
The SK-1 was the spacesuit worn on the Vostok 1-5 flights.
The same article describes the SK-2 suit as "[a]lmost exactly the same as the SK-1 but designed for a woman". It was worn by ...
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