This may look like an astronaut training for the
Olympics, but that's not what's really happening
here.
For the ISS, you want a rigid lower half with the
ability to rotate around the waist and then a
consistent working envelope. Which is about
right here in front of you. Easy to translate along the
handrails. So low torque in the upper joints.
Good dexterity in the gloves is a big one.
Eric Valis is a senior systems engineer.
He's been testing out a prototype of a new
spacesuit, which NASA hopes to use on the International
Space Station by 2026.
The spacesuits that are being used now in the
International Space Station by NASA are suits that were
really designed in the seventies. These are suits
that were originally designed for the Space
Shuttle program. Due to the lack of funding, NASA kept
working on them, kept repairing them and
maintaining them for all these many years.
But really, these are suits that are at the end of their
useful life.
NASA's tried to updated its suits in the past.
A 2021 report by NASA's Office of Inspector General
found that NASA has spent over a decade and an
estimated $420 million to develop a next-generation
replacement for its aging spacesuits, but failed to
produce any operational suits.
Estimates show that by the time new spacesuits are
actually in use, NASA will have spent more than a
billion dollars on the redesign and production.
There were two different issues.
One was the lack of funding. NASA, they had to
get funds, you know, from sometimes from other
projects to to fund their suit.
And the second problem was that there was no
destination. The projects of NASA have been moving
through different political agendas during the last few
years. And something that you need in any scientific
and technological organization is a purpose
and a timeline.
NASA is now going another route, contracting with
commercial companies to make and maintain its new
suits.
So without further ado, I'm very happy to announce that
the awardees will be Axiom Space and Collins Aerospace
Industry Team.
CNBC got a rare look inside Collins Aerospace's new
120,000-square-foot manufacturing and testing
facility located at the Houston Spaceport in Texas,
where the company showed us its new spacesuit.
NASA's current spacesuits, known as extravehicular
mobility units, or EMUs in NASA's speak, are very
complex.
The current spacesuit has roughly 18,000 components
that make it up, and the interior volume of the suit
is roughly equivalent to the size of a small
refrigerator, about 5.5 cubic feet.
There have been a number of safety concerns over the
years due to the aging spacesuits.
A final investigation is in following the near-drowning
in space of that Italian astronaut doing a spacewalk
outside the International Space Station.
His equipment failed him.
In fact, they say it was his calm demeanor that
probably saved his life after his helmet filled with
water.
In 2022, NASA temporarily suspended all spacewalks
following another incident where an astronaut's helmet
filled with water.
We're starting to see some degradation of performance,
some components that need to be replaced.
So on Space Station, we're really watching very, very
closely the performance of the EMUs while they are
still on orbit.
In the meantime, these new suits, for this particular
failure of water in the helmet, the new designs are
designed such that that failure mechanism cannot
occur.
Inventory issues are also a problem.
In 2019, NASA was forced to cancel what would have been
the first all-female spacewalk on the
International Space Station because the agency did not
have the proper spacesuit sizes available for both
female astronauts.
In the beginning of human space exploration, the
spacesuits were custom made.
With the beginning of the Space Shuttle Program, there
was this idea of abandoning the custom size system and
going to small, medium and large.
That worked for a while.
But as our astronaut corps is getting more and more
diverse, the sizes don't work anymore.
NASA's Office of Inspector General also noted that of
the original 18 primary life support system units,
only 11 remain in NASA's inventory to support the ISS
program, with only four of these units actually on the
ISS at any given time for astronauts to use during
spacewalks.
These are suits that were originally designed not to
be serviced in space, but to be serviced here on Earth
because they were dependent on the Space Shuttle.
So now it kind of changed the objective because they
have to keep them up there.
And the astronauts are the only ones who can repair and
maintain them. So the number is very, very
minimal.
The portable life support system or PLSS resembles a
bulky backpack and is one of the two main components
of the spacesuit or EMU.
The PLSS houses a variety of components that perform
functions needed to keep an astronaut alive in space,
including providing oxygen, maintaining body
temperature, and removing carbon dioxide buildup from
the spacesuit. The second major component is the
pressure garment system, or PGS, which is the white
garment that surrounds astronauts. Its main purpose
is to maintain appropriate pressure around astronauts'
bodies to keep them alive in the vacuum of space, as
well as protect them from orbital debris.
Underneath the PGS, astronauts don a liquid
cooling and ventilation garment through which cool
water flows to help regulate their body
temperature. The new suit designs follow a similar
suit structure, but are modernized.
There's just normal, what we call obsolescence issues,
certain parts we just can't get anymore.
And so we are building a new suit so that we can
start using new components, take advantage of all of the
new technologies that are available to us now that
just simply weren't available nearly 50 years
ago.
Under the Exploration Extravehicular Activity
Services Contract or xEVAs, NASA is providing Collins
and Axiom, along with a number of their industry
partners, with up to $3.5 billion through 2034.
Axiom won the first $228.5 million contract to design
the suits that will be used during NASA's Artemis Moon
missions. And Collins won the second $97.2 million
contract to design and develop a new generation of
suits for the International Space Station.
In addition to making the spacesuits, Collins and
Axiom will be tasked with providing maintenance and
parts to keep the suits in working condition, as well
as conducting training and operational support for
NASA's staff.
The beauty of this contract is the functional
requirements for these two suits are very, very close.
So at any given time we could ask either of those
contractors to actually start working on the other,
what we call, platforms.
And we also have, what we call, an on ramp clause in
the contract, which means if another company comes
into play and they have the capability to compete, we
can actually bring them on to the contract and allow
them to compete on task orders as well.
Kearney says the continued competition helps
incentivize the contractors to perform on cost and
schedule and ultimately helps keep the expense to
the government down. In addition to the fiscal
support, NASA also provided the vendors with access to
data from the organization's own suit
development efforts through its xEMU project.
What we basically did was take that design and we made
it available to industry because we put a lot of of
work and taxpayer money into developing that system.
And so as industry came in and proposed on the Artemis
suits, they were able to use any of the data we had
available from the xEMU development effort.
Axiom Space would not give CNBC a sneak peek of its
spacesuit designs prior to a public reveal.
To design this new spacesuit, Collins Aerospace
is working with longtime partner ILC Dover, as well
as Oceaneering. Collins, which is part of aerospace
and defense giant, Raytheon Technologies, is responsible
for the life support system, while ILC Dover is
in charge of devising the pressure garment.
Oceaneering will handle spacesuit and vehicle
interface capabilities.
The companies have a long history of working with
NASA.
We were actually selected to design and develop and
provide those spacesuits for the Apollo mission,
along with our partner, ILC Dover.
We were actually also selected to design and
develop the Space Shuttle EMU or extravehicular
mobility unit.
ILC Dover and Collins also designed the spacesuits that
astronauts currently use on the ISS.
One striking difference, though, is the weight.
The current EMU weighs about 275 pounds on Earth,
significantly heavier than the prototype that CNBC saw.
There are also other upgrades.
This helmet is different than the one that's used on
the EMU now. It offers a better range of visibility.
It has protective visors to protect from the sun's
radiation and glare.
The upper torso is adjustable, so it fits crew
members better and can be adjusted while they're on
orbit or during a mission to help prevent shoulder
injuries and to make their EVA more comfortable for
them. The upper arm is also new to this architecture.
It provides a better range of motion and a lower torque
motion than the current EMU.
Ferl says that while the current EMU fits the fifth
to 95th percentile of astronauts, this new suit is
designed to fit the first to 99th percentile of
astronauts using fewer parts.
As a result, 30% less hardware needs to be
launched into space, meaning lower launch costs
and decreased crew training time.
Another big improvement in this new generation of suits
is their increased mobility and range of motion.
Things like standing up, you really got to find the
angles to rotate your body, but it's definitely
something that we couldn't do before in the EMU.
Extended range of motion becomes particularly
important for planetary exploration.
Though Collins' contract with NASA calls for making
spacesuits for the International Space Station,
the company and its partners are designing the
suit with future planetary missions, like trips to Mars
and the moon, in mind.
For something like the Moon or Mars, definitely the less
restriction you have in the lower body, the better.
Being able to catch yourself if you start to
fall is a big plus, especially with all the dust
concerns. So good mobility.
Stabilization is important.
One of the biggest technological challenges for
going back to the moon is the dust dust particles,
which are like the consistency of talcum
powder. They sieve through any fabric, so the fabric
has to be coated or solid against the intrusion of
dust particles.
A lot of the lessons learned from Apollo need to be
applied and incorporated, so greater mobility, reduced
mass, greater connectivity for the astronauts.
They need a better ability to see what is going on with
our suits, communicate with each other, because as we
continue to go further and further from Earth, you're
going to have to have all of that capability, really
self-contained. Crew members need to be able to
operate somewhat independently from Earth.
Something else that suit makers have to consider is
the length of time that astronauts will be spending
on missions.
When we think about some of those longer duration
missions, some of the other aspects that we've
incorporated is really just the maintainability.
The ability to do maintenance at lower levels
and enable that work to be done at the destination.
So we've incorporated modularity and open
architecture. So as new technologies are introduced,
they can be incorporated into the suit.
Under the contract stipulations, NASA has asked
Axiom to deliver the suits for its Artemis Moon mission
by August 2025.
While Collins' ISS spacesuits are scheduled for
delivery by 2026.
Prior to being worn by astronauts on missions, the
suits have to undergo extensive testing.
We require crew member testing in the pressure
garment to make sure they're meeting the mobility
requirements. And then we also require testing what we
call relevant environments.
So that could be a thermal vacuum chamber, that could
be in the NBL, that could be actually testing on orbit
on Space Station.
Since NASA's purchasing its suits from Collins and Axiom
as a service, the vendors are free to make additional
suits for non-NASA customers as well.
Though Collins would not disclose the names of any of
its other customers, the company says it's speaking
with about 8 to 10 companies who are interested
in their spacesuit services.
The new customers that we're looking at are not just the
current batch of commercial space customers.
There are countries that are looking to be involved
in space that were not in the past able to
participate. And as space commercializes and becomes
more affordable, those countries now have the
opportunity to step in.
Romero also predicts that the design of these new
spacesuits will continue to evolve to fit the new use
cases of its broader customer base.
Today, we use it for maintenance and repair, very
little for experiential activities where you're
going out and doing space tourism.
That's really not a part of EVA today, but that probably
will become a part of EVA in the future.
Future programs will have more interaction with
robotics, so our suit needs to be in a position to be
able to communicate with the robotic systems and be
able to safely operate around a robot.
And it could be big business. The space tourism
market is poised to reach $4 billion by 2030.
NASA is also looking beyond commercial companies for
ideations of future spacesuits. In 2020, Pablo
de León and his team at the Space Flight Laboratory at
the University of North Dakota won a $750,000 NASA
grant to develop a new 3D-printed spacesuit
prototype for Mars and beyond.
De León has worked on a number of NASA spacesuit
projects in the past, but says this one's a little
different.
Some of the advantages will be first to make repeatable
manufacturing. The second will be that you can scan
the body and then build a suit that will be
specifically designed precisely to that particular
astronaut. And the third one is that once that our
spaceflights go further away from the Earth and we
go, say to Mars for example, we're more than one
year away from our planet.
And if we need a replacement, say a glove or
any other part of a spacesuit, you know, we are
one year away to get that replacement.
So what about if you can build a machine that will
put together your suits and you bring the machine to
Mars?
De León adds that exploring the surface of the moon and
Mars will likely mean that astronauts will be using the
spacesuits much more frequently.
Going back to the moon will require that we'll do
explorations almost every day or every two days.
The same for Mars.
Spacesuits, I think they kind of hit a nerve with
people just because there's a very human element to
them. It's exciting to work on something that's so
critical, that keeps crew members alive and safe.
I know it's a big responsibility that we feel
every day when we make decisions in the designs.
Yeah, it's really it's really exciting.