xEMU Thermal Vacuum Testing Overview
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Abstract
The Exploration Extravehicular Mobility Unit (xEMU) project was the culimation of over a decade of spacesuit development that was performed in-house at the NASA Johnson Space Center. This project reached a level where almost fully completed development fidelity spacesuits had been designed, assembled and tested in an integrated configuration. The xEMU Development-Verification-Test (DVT) hardware was assembled into two different xEMU test articles and underwent a series of thermal-vacuum tests at the Johnson Space Center�s Chamber B. These tests not only gathered data on thermal performance, but also exercised the life support system, communication system, suit information systems, and suit avionics. This complex test has and will continue to produce many meaningful reports ranging from component level test results (for example on spacesuit boots), test design of heater cages to simulate thermal environments for a spacesuit test article, and higher level thermal performance of subsystems (such as the Portable Life Support System) or the entire assembly. This paper provides an overview of the test configuration and also top level results from this highly successful integrated test of the xEMU.
Description
Liana Rodriggs, NASA Johnson Space Center(JSC), USA
Eric A. Falconi, Jacobs Technology, USA
Benjamin J. Swartout, Jacobs Technology, USA
Michael Lewandowski, Jacobs Technology, USA
ICES408: Extravehicular Activity: xEMU Thermal Vacuum Testing
The 53rd International Conference on Environmental Systems was held in Louisville, Kentucky, USA, on 21 July 2024 through 25 July 2024.