NASA OIG Reports Spacesuit Inventory Low and Replacements Years Away
NASA OIG: NASA’s Management and Development of Spacesuits, NASA OIG
“NASA continues to manage an array of design and health risks associated with the EMUs used by ISS crew. In addition, only 11 of the 18 original EMU Primary Life Support System units – a backpack-like structure that performs a variety of functions required to keep an astronaut alive during a spacewalk – are still in use, raising concerns that the inventory may not be adequate to last through the planned retirement of the ISS.”
“Despite spending nearly $200 million on NASA’s next-generation spacesuit technologies, the Agency remains years away from having a flight-ready spacesuit capable of replacing the EMU or suitable for use on future exploration missions.”
“After examining these spacesuit development efforts, we question NASA’s decision to continue funding a contract associated with the Constellation Program after cancellation of that Program and a recommendation made by Johnson Space Center officials in 2011 to cancel the contract. Rather than terminate the contract, NASA paid the contractor $80.8 million between 2011 and 2016 for spacesuit technology development, despite parallel development activities being conducted within NASA’s Advanced Exploration Systems Division.”
Is the Constellation $80.8 million contract the one to Oceaneering in Houston that was contested at time of award by Hamilton? If so, that was a lunar suit possibly with electrostatic repulsion of dust off the faceplate. So, it would seem useful if NASA is redirected back to the Moon.
The OIG report cherry picked the data to support their conclusions. Oceaneering continued to advance EVA technology but had nowhere near enough money to develop a flight suit. What would they rather us done, cancel all technology development and await further instructions from the White House?
So the report points out that JSC has wasted time and budget while allowing the EMU to continue well past its design life, and that it could only be a matter of time before there is an accident, which could mean not only the loss of a crew member, but the loss of ability to respond to ISS contingencies. And the best recommendation they have is to continue down this path.
In reading between the lines it would seem that the problem is with the JSC EVA Office, an office that was created to manage the EVAs required to build the ISS, also called the “Wall of EVAs”. In the beginning it was half funded by the Shuttle Program and half by the ISS Program. Today it is almost fully funded by the ISS Program, but has resisted being absorbed into the ISS Program. One way to resist was to keep CSSS alive, but on life support, for as long as possible. That way they could claim to be supporting multiple programs. So while US EVA capability continues to degrade, the EVA Office has been more concerned with protecting its turf then with developing space flight hardware and replacing the EMU.
You got it.
Too many issues here to list. It would have helped if the IG had gone and dug up the yearly budgets since the 80’s for space suits at JSC. Try and separate out ops from development and what you probably find is that no longer being able to justify development after a certain year, and AES saying they’d carry the tab, that JSC office just didn’t want their space suit top-line to drop, losing a bit of control in the process. The golden rule. He who has the gold makes the rules. Screw it. It’s my money, my people, my expertise spent a life time gathering, space is hard, that attitude.
I’d be willing to bet the response on recommendation #1 will be to modify a few PowerPoint slides and say those connect to slides that are from (iffy) Journey to Mars teams (which are now running lots out of JSC).
OR if congress would have actually did their oversight and demanded … you know … PROGRESS on the funding…
You
don’t have to read between the lines, the EVA Office (XA) wasted
millions protecting its turf.
I guess you missed the part where it says the HQ overruled JSC’s recommendation to terminate CSSS?
“Technically advanced space suits enable astronauts to successfully exit their spacecraft to explore new destinations, and to build and maintain new habitats in space.
In 2009, NASA selected Oceaneering to develop and produce the Constellation Space Suit System (CSSS) – a new space suit for solar system exploration.
The Oceaneering-designed space suit, called the Exploration Suit (EXS), is an effective, safe, affordable and reliable space suit system with a sustainable architecture for human exploration of our solar system.”
http://www.oceaneering.com/…
http://www.oceaneering.com/…
There is discussion by NASA’s and its efforts about its duty.