A significant step toward critical design review has been reached by Collins Aerospace, a private business contracted to build spacesuits for usage outside of the International Space Station (ISS), when they tested their suit on a commercial microgravity flight.
After 15 years of attempting to build new suits internally, NASA outsourced the creation of new spacesuits in 2022. The suit, according to Collins Aerospace, is smaller and lighter than the “enhanced” Extravehicular Mobility Units that NASA astronauts now wear. Unlike the earlier suits that are based on decades-old designs, it fits a significantly wider range of body types and may be altered when missions change.
“Roller-coaster-like maneuvers” were performed by the aircraft during the test to simulate weightlessness to evaluate if the prototype could truly support human movement.
The suit will be tested in a vacuum chamber by Collins Aerospace in the near future to examine how it functions in space, and NASA’s Neutral Buoyancy Lab in Texas will replicate microgravity for spacewalk training in a test conducted under 40 feet of water.