Spacesuit for astronauts SpaceX has developed a costume designer for superheroes: what is special about it

May 30 took place successful launch of the ship Crew Dragonwho delivered Bob Benken and Doug Hurley to the International Space Station. Almost no more attention than the launch, attracted the costumes that were on the astronauts. The new SpaceX spacesuits really look more like the clothes of heroes from Hollywood films than the usual emergency rescue suits familiar from the photo reports from Baikonur. What is the difference between new costumes, what materials are used in them and whether SpaceX had to sacrifice functionality for the sake of a spectacular appearance - «Medusa» I tried to find out from specialists in spacesuit engineering, engineers and space historians.

Like cars, spacesuits are very different. The most massive and impressive ones are those intended for spacewalks, such as Orlan and EMU, which are currently used on the ISS. Their main task is to provide astronauts with protection from radiation and micrometeorites outside the station. These are very heavy vehicles, the shell of which consists of many layers (Eagles, for example, weigh about 115 kilograms) - in fact, these are small spaceships that are able to function independently, that is, independently of the rest of the ISS equipment, for many hours. And although astronauts do not go into them, but mainly work with their hands, it still requires considerable effort. Other suits for extra-ship activity are close to this kind of spacesuit - for example, Hawks, developed in the 1960s in Russia, and the famous A7L spacesuits in which Apollo members walked on the Moon.

However, there is another type of spacesuit that astronauts wear only during takeoff and landing - they are called emergency rescue. The main task of such suits is to serve as a backup copy of the spacecraft life support systems if they fail during an accident, and become protective equipment if the pilot is forced to eject a parachute in the atmosphere. Such spacesuits include SK1 worn by Yuri Gagarin during the first space flight, pumpkin LES that were used as part of the Space Shuttle program, and modern Falcon spacesuits worn by astronauts for extra insurance and protection during take-off and landing of the Soyuz ship. SpaceX suits also belong to this type.

Is design more important than functionality?

Since the days of Gagarin, nothing has changed noticeably in the construction of emergency rescue suits, but the new SpaceX suit, at least visually, is completely different from its predecessors. Black and white, with straight lines, almost devoid of small details - when compared with the domestic "Falcons" there is a bright contrast, but the differences between them, of course, exist not only in terms of aesthetics, but also at the technological level.

“SpaceX suits differ primarily in the way they enter - they have the main zipper between their legs. In addition, the gloves there are not removable, as in Sokol, with a pressure seal, but with a lightning zipper - although they can only be unfastened, ”says Mikhail Sumnikov, deputy chief designer for space equipment and equipment at Zvezda research and production enterprise. It is Zvezda that makes the main competitors of SpaceX costumes - the Sokol KV 2 spacesuit, in which astronauts have been flying Soyuz since 1980.

“Communication [in SpaceX spacesuits] is built into the helmet, as is clear from the video. Life support is connected on the right thigh, and ventilation and oxygen supply are likely to be supplied to this connector, says Sumnikov. - In addition, [the difference is that] Sokolov has a regulator in front of his chest, which ensures that the pressure in the suit is maintained when oxygen is supplied in case of depressurization - SpaceX probably did it somehow, just chose another technical solution. This regulator can be on board, for example, as part of a system, or disguised in a spacesuit - designers paid a lot of attention to hide auxiliary elements that have a purely technical function. There are very few details - for the sake of course, precisely the futuristic look. ”

Designer Jose Fernandez worked on the futuristic look of the spacesuit, who, before moving into space, created costumes for fictional superheroes: Batman and Iron Man. Moreover, it is important to note that at first it was the appearance of the new spacesuits that was invented, and only then their "filling" was realized. Fernandez himself admitted to the press that at first he did not even know what they were doing in SpaceX, and thought that he was participating in the competition for creating costumes for the film.

Kathleen Lewis, curator of the Department of Space History at the National Museum of Aviation and Cosmonautics in the United States, believes that this approach undoubtedly influenced the result: “This spacesuit looks unique in the first place because the emphasis was on design. The past emergency rescue suits were created on the basis of high-altitude compensating suits for pilots, so many elements intended for the aircraft cockpit migrated to the spacecraft. The new spacesuit was designed so that its appearance first of all corresponded to the design elements of the Dragon capsule, and only then it was turned into a real emergency rescue suit. ”

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First @NASA astronauts to fly aboard Crew Dragon don their SpaceX spacesuits pic.twitter.com/LQbRdF2WJd

- SpaceX (@SpaceX) May 30, 2020

Will the suit cope with its main task - salvation in the event of an accident?

Very little is known about the real technical characteristics of the spacesuit - most of the information is simply classified. From official sources you can only find out that the spacesuit is created individually for each astronaut and that he has a single point for connecting life support systems, a 3D-printed helmet and touch gloves. It is also known that the SpaceX suit has a refractory outer layer and built-in hearing protection.

The emphasized minimalism and unconventional decision to put the appearance of the suit on the same level with functionality, as expected, raised questions from some experts. Nikolai Moiseev, spacesuit engineer, founder and chief engineer of Final Frontier Design, which collaborates with NASA and space agencies in other countries, believes that SpaceX’s approach contradicts functionality: “This suit has groin access. The Falcon has lightning in front, on the chest, and the astronauts come into it and go out without any help, it takes them a couple of minutes. What does it mean to unfasten the zipper that goes through the groin, from the ankle to the ankle and fit into this spacesuit? This means that you have to crawl into it, using your hands, and then try to put your hands in your sleeves yourself. Someone should pull the suit outside, pull and pull on the astronaut at this time, and someone should fasten this zipper. And the same thing back: someone must unzip and pull this spacesuit back from him. What does functionality mean? It’s easy to put on and easy to take off without help. ”

There is very little information about SpaceX suits, and one often has to wonder how they solved this or that engineering task. It is unclear, for example, how air is drawn from the new suit - Moses assumes that the air outlet valves are built into the helmet, and there is no ventilation in the arms and legs. In modern American and Russian spacesuits, the ventilation system is branched, which does not allow sweat to accumulate, and if only the head is cooled, then, Moses says, other parts of the body will still sweat.

Like other emergency rescue suits, the SpaceX suit has two shells: internal and external, but here there are significant differences from the traditional approach. “There is not a single hinge on this outer fabric shell, except for the folds on the fingers, and there is no power system,” Moiseyev explains.

“The power system is a complex of ribbons, powerful cables that can withstand hundreds of kilograms and keep the spacesuit from growing,” says Moiseev. - If the spacesuit grows, then the person, of course, will not die. But if the sleeve lengthens, then the fingertips inside will no longer touch the fingertips of the glove, and you will no longer be able to poke a single button. This spacesuit is so simple that if the cabin is depressurized, it will be inflated, and astronauts will just have to wait until they are returned back to Earth. They cannot do anything else. ”

Crew Dragon's hatch is closed, securing @AstroBehnken and @Astro_Doug in the spacecraft ahead of liftoff pic.twitter.com/8eNbxUIMDx

- SpaceX (@SpaceX) May 30, 2020

Moiseev also doubts the functionality of the boots, which were so widely discussed by users on social networks last week: “[Mask] these boots are part of the power system. Why are they leaving? They hold the mold under pressure so that the suit is not too inflated. But in the event of a splashdown, emergency departure from the ship is provided when a team with small inflatable, relatively speaking, rafts, is to be expected, and the astronaut will drown in this spacesuit and in these boots. They are so narrow that you can’t pull them off, and each of them will pick up a bucket of water. ”

The deputy designer of Zvezda, Mikhail Sumnikov, is a little less critical of SpaceX technological solutions: “In an emergency, of course, this can limit mobility, but SpaceX astronauts sit static during the leak test and don’t make any hand movements. Of course, from the old times we have quite strict requirements for “Falcon” regarding mobility: for example, why [in the “Falcon”] the [pressure] regulator was carried to the chest? So that the astronaut could reach him on his own and, if necessary, when he needs to get somewhere in a very uncomfortable place, lower the pressure in the spacesuit, thereby increasing his mobility. We, of course, have much more space in Soyuz. But the SpaceX ship was designed differently, and apparently the astronauts did not need to make any sharp and complex movements there. Now [the developer of the Soyuz spacecraft company] Energia is also designing a new ship, there is already more space there and the concept is different, respectively, and there will be different requirements for the new Sokol. ”

“The design element is always present”

Traditionally, spacesuit designers have been quite conservative in their introduction of innovation. They work on life support systems, so they try not to make radical changes to an already debugged mechanism. Accordingly, the approach is usually used as utilitarian - it is important that the suit is reliable and easy to use, aesthetics in this case follow the residual principle. However, this does not mean that Elon Musk was the first who, in principle, thought about how the spacesuits look.

“This is not to say that in the past the designers of spacesuits did not think about their appearance. Any equipment includes an element of aesthetics. The fact is that traditionally the costume inherits its appearance from previous generations. Sometimes this appears outside, as was the case with the Advanced Crew Escape Suit (ACES), which astronauts wore during shuttle flights, and sometimes designer vestiges are hidden inside, such as in the Falcons that the astronauts wear in the Soyuz capsule ”, Says Catherine Lewis, curator of the Department of Space History at the United States National Museum of Aviation and Cosmonautics.

“The design element in spacesuits is always present. Even after creating a functional suit, designers still have room for an aesthetic choice. One example that comes to mind is the spacesuits [of the first US manned program] Mercury, created in the early 1960s, ”says Catherine Lewis. - They were based on the design of Mark IV flight suits for naval aviation pilots developed by BF Goodrich. Initially, the costumes were green, which resonated with some elements of the aircraft. At that time, both BF Goodrich and David Clark's company were experimenting with reflective coatings for their pilots' suits. NASA has decided to apply the reflective silver coating that we see today on the spacesuits of the Mercury program, although the reasons for its use inside the spacecraft were much less significant than for the flight mission. The decision to make the Mercury 7 crew unlike the previous pilot groups was [primarily] aesthetic. ”

“The SpaceX Dragon costume positions the crew as a new group of researchers and correlates them with the new transportation method they use. The high-contrast black and white design matches the internal and external design of the Dragon capsule, ”concludes Katherine Lewis.

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3D helmet and touch gloves

It is known that the company Ilona Mask spent four years creating a spacesuit. For the first time, its prototype was publicly tested on the Starman mannequin, which in 2018 went into outer space and now plows its open spaces behind the wheel of a Tesla Roadster.

During the development of the costume, of course, it changed a little: if at first it was especially narrow, then by the time of testing it became much more like traditional emergency rescue suits. Nevertheless, the final version still uses several unusual solutions for this kind of equipment at once. You won’t surprise anyone with touch gloves, but, for example, custom-designed plastic helmets printed on a 3D printer have become a matter of discussion.

“In Russia [in space] 3D printers are mainly used to create prototypes, layouts, and then everything is done on CNC machines. Since 2014, in America, we have been printing our helmets [immediately] on 3D printers. Why did we come to this? Because it is five times cheaper than on an CNC machine, and much faster, ”says Nikolay Moiseev. - The new [SpaceX] helmet is also printed on a 3D printer, and on the one hand, this is an advantage. But it is printed from plastic, and plastic is a fragile material. Our helmets and Falcon helmets are made of metal. Strength is needed so that the helmet does not crack [at high pressure]. Because of this, they made it very thick, the estimated thickness is 25 millimeters, while the thickness of the metal helmet parts is 1,5 millimeters. ”

Competitors will not borrow specific SpaceX solutions, but the new spacesuits have already changed the trends of "space fashion"
One of the main questions is how the new spacesuits will show themselves and whether they will affect the design of future suits. After the flight with Denken and Hurley, a communication session took place, during which they put the “five stars” spacesuits, saying that they were comfortable in the capsule.

“Like many, until the very last moment, we were also skeptical of spacesuits, looking [only] at the pictures. But, having watched the rehearsal of the launch more closely, we saw that they really did check for leaks, the spacesuit was filled with pressure, inflated, the glove with hermetic zippers was fastened, so after seeing the presentation I personally got the impression that they still had the spacesuit [done] as it should, ”comments Mikhail Sumnikov from Zvezda.

However, a more serious discussion of functionality is worth the wait when the astronauts return to Earth. “Somewhere this gives us a lesson; there is still a comprehension of this lesson ahead. But at the moment I’m not going to copy his [Ilona Mask] decision, ”says Moses.

“As an example, we can recall such a story. There was a space race, the Soviet Union and the United States followed each other, and then the Soviet Union collapsed - an American suit got into Russia, and an Orlan spacesuit got into America to go into outer space, ”says Moiseev. - We studied them both there and there. In Russia, they did not copy anything from the American spacesuit, they took only a soft tank from a film for water, which is placed in the chest area. Yes, they used to sew diapers on their own, from many layers of fabric, and then [when modern available analogues appeared] they just started buying diapers for adults at the pharmacy. The Americans also studied the Soviet Orlan spacesuit and only copied the wrist joint of the glove. They had problems with their joint, then they saw a more original solution that worked better. That is, the Americans, having studied the entire spacesuit, all-all-all details, copied only one node. Here is a real historical example. I see this suit of Ilon Mask, and the Chinese see, see other American firms. Do any of them want to copy the same? Probably not".

Nevertheless, the SpaceX spacesuit became a symbol of a new stage in the history of space exploration - which was probably what the company had expected when creating it. “Mask really set us a completely new trend: the suit should look cool. Although my teachers told me before that: “Nikolai, the spacesuit looks cool like that,” ”concludes Moses.

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