NASA has selected Axiom Space and Collins Aerospace to create the next-generation spacesuits that future astronauts will wear during spacewalks.
After failing to design a new suit on its own, NASA has made a daring move by handing the project over to the private sector.
NASA said the deal is worth $3.5 billion, a limit that spans the duration of the contract and includes both partial development expenses and future purchases of the suits for agency use.
381298 08: Astronaut William (Bill) Mcarthur, Appears Suspended Over The Blue And White Earth October 15, 2000 During Space Walk Activities Near The Longerons Of The Space Shuttle Discovery.
NASA Picks Axiom Space and Collins Aerospace For Moon Mission Spacesuits
NASA has previously said that it is working on developing new spacesuits for its astronauts. The government has spent $420 million building these spacesuits and working on them for 15 years. The Exploration Extravehicular Mobility Unit (xEMU) was the most recent spacesuit they were working on.
Unfortunately, they discovered that the delays in constructing a new spacesuit would only cause the agency's Artemis program to be delayed. As a result, NASA announced its partnership with Axiom and Collins to provide the agency much-improved spacesuit. NASA experts defined the technical and safety standards for the spacesuits to be built and the chosen companies agreed to meet the requirements.
Both commercial businesses will get access to the technology already developed by NASA. On the other hand, these businesses will be the ones to design, develop, certify and produce the spacesuits that will be utilized for future space operations on the International Space Station and the Moon mission.
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Vanessa Wyche of NASA's Johnson Space Center said the first new NASA spacesuits in decades were the workhorse for 40 years.
"These new capabilities will allow us to continue on the ISS and allows us to do the Artemis Program and continue on to Mars," Wyche said per ArsTechnica.
The spacesuit ventures of Axiom and Collins will each get a limited amount of guaranteed funding to develop the new technology. Both teams will be eligible for a $3.5 billion contract to produce spacesuits for NASA missions from 2034 onwards.
Axiom and Collins, like the commercial businesses that carry goods and humans to the ISS, do not yet have guaranteed orders under the contract. They will, however, be allowed to compete for mission task orders as early as 2025. It would also involve a demonstration mission outside of the ISS and the Artemis 3 lunar landing in 2025 or 2026, according to NASA.
How the Spacesuits Would Look Like
The new spacesuit is supposed to be created with diversity in mind, meaning that it will fit every body type, male or female. NASA's spacesuits have been known to cause problems in the past. The spacesuits have been repeatedly chastised.
Furthermore, NASA has only conducted one all-woman spacewalk since 2019 because of the challenges that must be overcome by switching out the appropriate spacesuit elements in orbit. As a result, the agency demands that the next generation of spacesuits be engineered to be adaptable.
Dan Burbank, a retired NASA astronaut and senior technical fellow at Collins Aerospace said that a spacesuit shouldn't feel like a spaceship. "We want to be able to create an immersive environment that, for the crew member, gives them the most amount of mobility," he told Space.com.
The previous EMU spacesuits, according to NASA, are showing indications of wear and tear. The water leak in the astronauts' spacesuits in March was the most recent indication of this. At present point, they are unable to use EMUs aboard the space station to do normal spacewalks.
The agency's extravehicular mobility units (EMUs), which have been in service since 1983 and were designed by Collins Aerospace and ILC Dover, will be phased out in favor of new suits produced by Axiom Space and Collins Aerospace.
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