NASA Picks Two Space Suit Contractors
NASA Partners with Industry for New Spacewalking, Moonwalking Services
“NASA has selected Axiom Space and Collins Aerospace to advance spacewalking capabilities in low-Earth orbit and at the Moon, by buying services that provide astronauts with next generation spacesuit and spacewalk systems to work outside the International Space Station, explore the lunar surface on Artemis missions, and prepare for human missions to Mars.”
Spacesuits aboard station declared a “no-go” pending analysis of recent helmet water leak, CBS
“The aging shuttle-era spacesuits aboard the International Space Station have been declared “no-go” for operational, normally planned spacewalks, pending analysis to determine what led to excess water getting into an astronaut’s helmet during a March excursion, officials confirmed Tuesday.”
Keith’s note: The NASA press release says total contract value is $3.5B if all of the contract options are eventually exercised but there are no details on how NASA funding is accomplished or the value of these two individual contracts. Oh yes – there is no mention of how these suits will help NASA deal with current suit issues on ISS right now. The earliest that these suits might be tested is apparently in the 2025 timeframe according to Axiom and Collins – maybe. As to whether they will be ready for an actual lunar mission i.e. Artemis 3 – that’s anyone’s guess since no one knows exactly when that flight will happen.
NASA declined to answer the “when” question with regard to spacesuit testing. Both companies suggest the 2025 time frame but provided no other detail. NASA would only say “mid-2020s” for when these spacesuits will be in use. When asked about water in helmets of current ISS EVA suits the NASA rep only says that they are studying it.
When asked what the value of each contract the NASA person said that it is going to be published in the source selection documents in late June. So .. one has to assume that NASA still does not know – otherwise they’d tell us, right?
Spacesuit companies were asked how much they’ve invested already. Axiom Space would not answer other than to say that they spent what they spent and “you can go figure it out”. The Collins Aerospace guy had no number to offer either. Again, so much for transparency in this government/industry partnership
Oh and despite NASA awarding contracts worth up to $3.5 billion for new spacesuits for the ISS and the Moon – no one actually has pictures to share of the spacesuits that $3.5 billion from NASA will buy.
One media question asked why NASA is going to spend more money on spacesuits than a Human Lander System since it would seem that a lander is more complicated than a spacesuit. Answer – a fast talking NASA guy: moon ships are moon ships and spacesuits are spacesuits.
Meanwhile no one at NASA has any idea when an actual Moon landing will happen.
If Collins and Axiom can’t qualify suits before Artemis 3 maybe SpaceX could provide theirs? That’d be an interesting pre-flight news conference.
I wonder whose suits will be used if the Starship and Lunar Landing ships are ready before Artemis 3?
When Jared Issacman and his Polaris project fly a crew in a Starship with the SpaceX orbital EVA suits for testing. That will be the indication that the Artemis III crew will likely be walking around on the Moon in SpaceX Lunar excursion suits.
The NASA EVA suit announcement is for suits that might be available no earlier than 2026 for testing. IMO.
A few minutes of floating outside of the Dragon in orbit is a hugely different thing from a Lunar traverse.
Didn’t wrote anything about a Dragon. It was Issacman in a Starship with SpaceX orbital EVA suits. The step after floating outside of a Dragon.
I half expect to see SpaceX xEVA suits used during the Polaris Dawn 2 mission, which I’m betting will involve Crew Dragon and a Starship with HLS mods. Perhaps making the point that you don’t need to launch the crew taxi all the way to the moon, just have it dock with Starship HLS in low Earth orbit and let depots do the work.
AIUI Polaris 3 is a Starship mission. Supposedly a precursor shakedown mission for the #dearMoon Lunar flyby mission.
Not too sure what vehicles will be involved in the Polaris 2 mission.
For ISS EVAs the Space X EVA suit should be available towards the end of the year.
I’ve not seen specs on those yet. Will they have independent life support good for 7-8 hours and meet other NASA requirements for use at ISS? The one piece of artwork I’ve seen from SpaceX looks a lot more like Ed White’s Gemini 4 suit on a long hose.
The SpaceX suit they will use on the Polaris Dawn flight is just that. A suit. It has no independent life support system and relies on an umbilical from the Falcon 9.
Out of curiosity just how old are those suits that they can’t use? I thought I read they date back to the 80’s or even the 70’s?
They were designed in the late 70’s and started production in 1981.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wi…
I’ve read (sorry, don’t remember where) that they only have enough parts for four complete suits. When they rotate a suit out, whether for maintenance or because an astronaut needs a different size, they have to pull parts off the old suit to get the replacement working.
I remember applying to work for a company that had been awarded a spacesuit development contract back in maybe 2008-2009 or so. My memory might be hazy, but haven’t there been multiple spacesuit contracts awarded in the last two decades? Whatever happened to those efforts?
Cost plus with 27 subcontractors happened. As of five years ago they weren’t expected to be ready before 2030.
https://spacenews.com/nasa-…
The selection statement isn’t being published publicly yet because the winners’ lawyers need time to go over it and censor company private information. The same thing happened with the HLS award. Three or four weeks is not unreasonable.
NASA’s transition to fixed fee milestone contracts is a good thing and should be encouraged. This really should have been done after the 2017 OIG report, but late is better than never.
Gary Harris’s “The Origins and Technology of the Advanced Extra-Vehicular Space Suit” is the closest you can get to a textbook on spacesuits, it’s a terrific book by an engineer’s engineer.
But after you’ve finished it, the only reaction you can walk away with is… well, what happened?!
From the AAS press release:
“Written in language that the interested lay reader and engineer alike can appreciate, the publication The Origins and Technology of the Advanced Extra-Vehicular Space Suit, for the first time in any book, provides an introductory engineering look at the history, evolution and future of the world’s advanced extra-vehicular (EVA) space suits beyond that of the Apollo space suit system. Starting with the first true scientific mobility studies by Litton Industries for a vacuum chamber suit, and proceeding to present American and Russian Lunar and Mars EVA suit investigations, the primary theme of the book is that an advanced EVA suit is needed for the International Space Station and beyond, and that NASA has had the capability to develop and deploy such a suit system for three decades, but has been unable to do so. This, despite the efforts of some of NASA and industry’s most talented engineers, and the recognition that the Space Shuttle Extravehicular Mobility Unit is approaching “antique” status.”
Keith…We can’t expect transparency from private companies, but if these are corporations than I guess we might see their costs in their SEC filings later .