NEWSLETTER
Collins Aerospace, a private company contracted to create spacesuits for use outside the International Space Station (ISS), has tried on his suit aboard a commercial microgravity flight, passing a milestone that allows engineers to move toward critical design review.
NASA outsourced the design of new spacesuits in 2022 after spending 15 years trying to develop new suits on its own. Collins Aerospace said The suit is lighter and has less bulk than the “improved” Extravehicular Mobility Units used by current NASA astronauts. It can be modified as missions change and fits a much wider range of body types much more easily than older suits that are based on designs that are decades old.
During the test, the plane performed “roller coaster-like maneuvers” to induce weightlessness and allow someone carrying a prototype to see if it would actually allow someone to move around in it under those conditions. As seen in the video below, they tried things like walking through doors in zero gravity.
Collins Aerospace's next test will place the suit in a vacuum chamber to see how it performs in the vacuum of space, while a test in 40 feet of water at NASA's Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory in Texas will simulate microgravity for training of space walks.
