Simulation on Thermal Control System of the Extravehicular Spacesuit

Abstract

The extravehicular (EVA) spacesuit is the life support system for astronauts in the extravehicular activity and help the astronauts perform the assembling of large space vehicle and maintenance. The thermal control system is one of the most important functions for extravehicular spacesuit, and it’s directly related to the thermal protection structure and active temperature control, especially to the human body heat load. In this study, a human-suit thermal control model was built and the effect of human heat load, outside thermal environment and their composition effect to the thermal control system was analyzed. The extravehicular spacesuit prototyping system was used to validate the model. The results show as the follows.(1) It’s reasonable to set 3 percent of the chiller flow as the lowest gear of thermal control system which can maintain the inside suit thermal comfort during low temperature and low metabolism situation. (2) The thermal control system’s response will be faster if the temperature gear is higher. (3) It is not significantly affected to the temperature response of cooling input if the human metabolism rate is below 500W. (4) Thermal control model’s validation and evaluation by dry thermal manikin is receivable. Overall, the human-suit thermal control model can be used to improve the design of extravehicular spacesuit’s thermal protection system.