ASTRONAUT BIO-SUIT SYSTEM TO ENABLE PLANETARY EXPLORATION

The Bio-Suit System concept is designed to revolutionize human space exploration by providing enhanced astronaut extravehicular activity (EVA) locomotion and performance, based on the idea of a ‘second skin’ capability and of biomechanically and cybernetically augmented human performance capacity. The novel Bio-Suit concept provides an overall exploration system realized through symbiotic relationships between a suite of advanced technologies, creative design, and human modeling and analysis. By working at the intersection of engineering, design, and operations, new emergent capabilities and interrelationships could help realize the new Vision for Space Exploration. The second skin envisioned is capable of augmenting our biological skin by providing mechanical counter pressure. Perhaps the ‘epidermis’ of such a second skin will be a ‘spray-on’ polymer providing natural locomotion for explorers. Several concepts for a mechanical counter pressure suit have been developed, and subsequently, initial prototypes have been tested. To determine engineering requirements for future prototypes, the three-dimensional anthropometry of the moving human body has been studied.