This isn't your traditional bathing suit.
It's actually NASA's
Exploration Extravehicular Mobility Unit,
or xEMU,
the first new flight spacesuit
developed by the agency in over 40 years.
And it's what the next astronauts will wear
when we finally go back to the moon in 2024.
But before its boots touch the lunar surface,
the suit must be tested, rigorously.
Amy Ross: We know that if we don't do our job well,
we can kill somebody.
Narrator: Testing isn't just about
making sure it functions.
It's about making sure the astronauts who use it
come back home safe.
Ross: We are a life-support system.
And so that is something that we all know
and keep in the back of our minds
every day as we do our job,
because rule No. 1 is crew members come home.
Narrator: This is Amy.
And Amy has to make sure the suit
can stand up to a lot.
The Artemis program plans to take crews
to the moon's south pole
for months at a time,
in shadowy regions that could drop
to minus 370 degrees Fahrenheit or even lower.
And astronauts will have to double as geologists,
especially given NASA's discovery
of the presence of ice on the moon,
something that could help fuel rockets,
turning the moon into a gas station en route to Mars.
So the xEMU testing process
has been long and grueling,
with some tests run twice the recommended amount
just to be safe.
It's all broken up into three phases.
Development,
design verification,
and qualification.
The first phase is all about finalizing a design.
Amy and her team try out
a bunch of different lower-quality components
before deciding which design to actually build.
Ross: You now, it's like a car.
Is your car's steering good?
Well, until you put it in a car,
it's hard to tell.
We can put different shoulders in and see,
does this shoulder work better than this shoulder?
Narrator: Once that's all figured out,
the suit moves to the design-verification stage.
Ross: The idea is that we're going to
stay on the moon for months at a time.
And that means that you need
to be very flexible and capable,
and you need to be durable.
Narrator: Now, we've been to the moon before,
but not for this long,
not this location,
and not with the knowledge we have now.
Ross: We're being asked to go to
permanently shadowed regions
because there are gases in those places
that stay very, very cold.
And I'm talking, like, minus-370-degrees-Fahrenheit cold.
Narrator: They won't be working
in temperatures that cold,
but the suit does have to withstand temperatures
as high as 250 degrees Fahrenheit
and as low as minus 250 degrees Fahrenheit,
a wider range than ever before.
To make sure it holds up,
NASA tests the suit in what's basically a big,
vacuum-sealed oven/freezer,
both manned and unmanned.
Ross: Chamber B here at Johnson Space Center
is a human-rated thermal vacuum chamber we'll use.
We'll go in there with a portable
life-support system on our back,
then we'll test the suit through
its different phases of operation
to make sure that it does hold up
and operates in the vacuum
and in the thermal environments that we'll see.
Narrator: Along with temperature controlled,
the suit must be durable.
When we first went to the moon,
scientists were concerned
that the regolith-covered lunar surface
wouldn't support the weight of people and machines.
But the real issue with the regolith
is that it's sharp and dusty,
something that could really muck up
the fine-tuned workings of a spacesuit.
So, where's the best place to test dust resistance?
Ross: In an environment that's dusty and rocky.
Narrator: This is what durability testing
in the Arizona desert looks like.
Ross: And that kind of tells you
what parts of your suit are affected by the dust,
does it have a problem with the dust so much?
Is your mobility system really able
to walk over this rough terrain?
Those kinds of things.
Narrator: But the desert simulates
the terrain of the moon
and not a lot else.
In order to test mobility in lunar gravity,
the engineers have to move someplace wetter.
Ross: Like the neutral buoyancy laboratory, our big pool.
Narrator: In this giant pool, 40 feet deep,
astronauts can see what it feels like
to be on the moon,
to a point.
Ross: It's not really like moon gravity,
because as you try to walk,
you're having to push through the water.
But as a reasonable analog to do some activities,
it's a good one.
Narrator: Activities like ladder climbing, using tools,
and ceremonially planting the American flag.
These tests let engineers collect objective data
about the suit's life-support system and mobility,
but also subjective data
about the crew's experience using it.
Ross: Our suit's not done until they say it's done
and they like it
and they think they can use it to do their job.
Narrator: Now, qualification testing
includes a lot of the same stuff as design verification,
but there are a few key differences.
Ross: Part of it is the paperwork.
Narrator: Things get a little more strict
in the qualification stage.
Ross: We have a lot of caretaking
to make sure that we understand
everything that is done with flight hardware.
You change a screw out,
there's a piece of paperwork,
it says this new screw got put in
on this date to this particular place.
Narrator: Since this is the stage
that lower-quality test hardware
gets swapped out for the fancy flight-ready stuff,
testing can slow down a bit.
But in the end...
Ross: When you do qualification testing,
you're really using that as a proof for everybody
to put in front of everybody
that says this suit is good to fly in space.
Narrator: And once they get the green light...
Ross: That's when you load it onto a vehicle,
take it up to space, and use it in a mission.
Narrator: NASA plans to send the xEMU
to use on the International Space Station in 2023
to collect flight data
and confirm the suit's overall performance.
It's important to note that
this isn't actually considered a test.
Ross: At NASA, we need to feel like
we're very confident that that hardware
is going to work the way it was required to work
before we fly it.
So we don't usually go into flight calling it a test.
Narrator: Instead, it's a flight-data mission.
And it will be one of the last major milestones
before the xEMU is ready to land on the moon.
Spacesuit testing can take years,
thousands of elbow bends,
and even more tests than we're able to show here.
But it's all necessary
to ensure the comfort, functionality,
and, most of all, safety for NASA's astronauts.
Oh, and I know you're probably curious
about how they test the suit's bathroom situation.
Well, NASA has basically created a diaper.
Ross: And we tend to use simulated urine,
just to keep things tidier.
Narrator: There you have it.
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