Vital Program for Artemis and ISS Loses One of Two Vendors
Though they are often taken for granted, spacesuits are a vital part of US space efforts, both now with the International Space Station, and also later, when astronauts from Project Artemis undertake their EVA duties on the lunar surface. Without spacesuits, many of the necessary maintenance and upgrade duties on ISS cannot be performed, and obviously, without spacesuits, no one will be walking on the moon.
Spacesuits are not easy. They are effectively spacecraft in their own right: they must protect astronauts from the harsh environment of space, and they must also reliably provide lift support for them while they are performing their duties. All of this activity is independent of the parent spacecraft, and its execution must be flawless.
Sounds simple, but in reality, it is not: temperature variances from sunlight to shadow can be as much as 500º Farenheit: -250ºF in the shade, +250ºF in direct sunlight. Micrometeroids and space debris present a constant danger, and must be accounted for. Air must be provided for the astronaut to breathe — and that system must not fail while the spacesuit is in use. And, in addition to those and many other requirements, the spacesuit must offer mobility and flexibility to an astronaut such that the astronaut can perform the work they are setting out to do.
So, not simple. Despite the long history of spacesuits being used since the 1960s, creating a new design is a complex engineering challenge, and one not be taken lightly, considering that an astronaut’s life depends on that spacesuit while they are using it.
Why New Suits Are Needed
Photo: NASA
Currently, the spacesuits in use on the International Space Station are decades old. The Extravehicular Mobility Units (EMUs) aboard ISS were first introduced in 1981. In the 43 years since the EMU went into service, it has been upgraded, individual units repaired and used heavily aboard the orbiting outpost.
First, Hamilton Sundstrand and ILC Dover refined the existing Shuttle EMU by making the suit modular. This allowed an EMU to be left on the ISS for up to two years before it needed to be returned to Earth for refurbishment. The change also allowed the EMU to be resized on-orbit to fit various crew members, a critical change given that they are donned by both male and female astronauts and that there is a notable variance in their physical sizes. ISS EMUs also have upgraded battery capacity, a Simplified Aid For EVA Rescue (SAFER), improved cameras and radios, and a new caution and warning system as well as other improvements, such as improved hand heaters to allow the suit to be usefuel throughout an entire orbit where the temperatures can change 500 degrees over the course of a 95-minute loop around the Earth.
Problem is, these suits are wearing out. They have been in use a very long time, and like many other older mechanical devices, they are showing their age and developing unexpected and inconvenient problems. They need to be replaced for ISS, and the EMU currently in use is also unsuitable for lunar EVAs.
NASA’s Efforts To Procure New Spacesuits
In June of 2022, NASA selected two vendors to provide new spacesuits, called Exploration Extravehicular Activity Services, or xEVAS. The contracts were fixed-price, service contracts, where the vendors would provide NASA with working spacesuits as needed.
The Cost-Plus contract method was much the same as the one the agency employed for launch services for ISS resupply and commercial crew — programs that have seen great success mainly due to SpaceX, with Northrup Grumman and others also contributing, especially with commercial resupply. SpaceX has completed eight crew rotation missions to ISS, plus one demonstration mission, while Boeing is currently in flight with astronauts aboard ISS via its Starliner capsule. The plan is for NASA to procure new spacesuits as a service, rather than as assets that they will own and operate.
The two winners of the spacesuit contracts were Collins Aerospace, working with ILC Dover and Oceaneering, and the other, Axiom Space, who formed a team of companies that includes David Clark Company, KBR and Paragon Space Development Corporation. Taken together, the xEVAS contracts are worth $3.5 billion through 2034, assuming that all optional task orders are exercised throughout the life of the contract. Originally, the plan was for Axiom to develop ISS suits, with Axiom taking on the development of lunar EVA spacesuits.
Collins Drops Out
On June 25th, Collins announced that they had stopped working on the xEVAS program. This was confirmed by NASA. “No further work will be performed on the task orders,” the agency said in a statement to Spacenews.com. “This action was agreed upon after Collins recognized its development timeline would not support the space station’s schedule and NASA’s mission objectives.”
While Collins did not state any specific reasons for dropping out of the contract, it is widely believed in space circles that the reason was simply one of the program not being profitable to the company due to cost overruns from its initial budget and delays caused by technical problems through their development cycle. It should be noted that is supposition, and only Collins and NASA know the specific reasons for the contract termination.
Axiom Continues To Make Progress
All is not lost in the suit program, however, as Axiom has reported steady progress throughout their development cycle.
In a statement released on X.com on June 26, 2024 after the news that Collins was dropping out of the suit program, Axiom Space commented that
“[We are continuing] development & testing of their AxEMU [spacesuit] to deliver a next-gen spacesuit for Artemis, ready for the challenges of the lunar south pole. We are on track, meeting/exceeding all milestones for the nation’s return to the Moon by 2026.”
Photo: Axiom Space
Additionally, Axiom announced on June 4th that “astronaut and director of human spaceflight Peggy Whitson and NASA astronaut Douglas Wheelock recently stepped inside Axiom Space’s next-generation spacesuit to conduct integrated testing in support of NASA’s Artemis campaign, which is set to return astronauts to the Moon by September 2026. It was the first integrated test bringing Artemis III partners – NASA, SpaceX, and Axiom Space – together to conduct a pressurized simulation, and the first test of its kind since the Apollo era.”
“Astronaut feedback is crucially important, helping to inform the engineering teams on any iterative changes needed,” said Russell Ralston, Vice President of Extravehicular Activity (EVA), Axiom Space. “After this test, we’re able to further refine and develop innovative solutions to inform our single architecture design.”
In less than two years, Axiom Space has made substantial progress in suit design and testing. The suit design is beyond the preliminary design review point with NASA and will enter the critical design review phase later this year.
“We’ve conducted many tests with different people, including engineers and astronauts to ensure the suit’s advanced capabilities will enable a wide range of crewmembers to conduct extensive science research during the Artemis III mission to the lunar south pole,” said Ralston.
Photo: Axiom Space
Next up for Axiom and the AxEMU suit is testing in the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory at Johnson Space Center in Houston with an astronaut inside the suit. The company has already successfully tested AxEMU in the NBL without a passenger inside, and the next step is to add a human into the loop and test AxEMU’s systems in a simulation of 15% gravity that the lunar crews will experience.
The company has not announced a specific date for the testing, or which astronaut will be aboard AxEMU, but those tests are expected sooner rather than later as Axiom makes steady progress towards its goal of fulfilling its NASA contract and also proving a spacesuit suitable for the company’s planned commercial space station.
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