It is in 2025 that the Artemis III mission must take place. It is therefore in 2025 that the new space suits will have to be ready. NASA is confident.
Going around the Moon with an uninhabited capsule is good. Doing the trip again with a crew on board is better. And, landing on the surface of the satellite is the end goal. The first level has just been successfully reached, thanks to the Artemis I mission, which ended in December. For the rest of the events, it will be necessary to have space suits.
The American space agency already has one: since 1981, it has relied on the EMU (Extravehicular Mobility Unit) model, which has had essentially two versions: the so-called basic model, which operated between the 1980s and until the very early 2000s, and the upgraded model, which operated from the late 90s and is still in use today.
The EMU model is a suit that has served NASA and partner agencies well, but it is an aging model – after all, the foundations of this suit are now forty years old. This is why during the summer of 2022, NASA selected two candidate companies – Axiom Space and Collins Aerospace – to develop the post-EMU.
Necessary combinations from 2025
In principle, it is in 2025 that these new combinations are supposed to enter the scene. It is on this date that the Artemis III mission will take place (Artemis II, which is planned for 2024, does not involve any spacewalk). However, this must consist of a moon landing, accompanied by a spacewalk for part of the crew. Astronauts must therefore have suitable clothing available.
In other words, this means that Axiom and Collins have less than three years to manufacture, test and validate them. Can the deadline be met? Yes, according to Chris Hansen, deputy program manager for space suits and lunar vehicles for NASA. Interviewed on December 12 by Ars Technica, he gave encouraging news.
The calendar still officially provides for the availability of new outfits for 2025 and Artemis III, and NASA says it is confident in the ability of its two service providers to meet the schedule. The two groups did not need to start from a completely blank sheet: in addition to the existing EMU, it turns out that NASA worked for a time on an evolution, the xEMU.
” They were able to use it extensively in their designs “, thus confided Chris Hansen. This prototype suit, presented in 2019, has already benefited from $420 million in funding and more than ten years of research and development. This has saved Collins and Axiom time, but also money, although Chris Hansen points to the significant investments made on their end.
The development of a post-EMU suit is doubly necessary to respond to a lunar exploration. First, the Extravehicular Mobility Unit is a heavy, rigid outfit, not offering great freedom of movement and ease of movement. Then, it was not designed for a lunar environment, with rocks and dust.
It is therefore necessary to offer outfits that are easier to wear and use, while ensuring that they are resistant to everything that can happen on the lunar soil. By caricaturing, an astronaut’s fall should not cause a tear in the outfit, for example. The crews must be able to move with ease, lean, bend their limbs, etc.
These new outfits will not only be used for lunar exploration. They will also be deployed as part of extravehicular outings in orbit, whether around the Earth with the International Space Station or around the Moon with the future orbital station. Axiom has to take care of the one for the lunar outing, while Collins for the orbital missions.