Some problems of selection and evaluation of the Martian suit enclosure concept

Abstract

One of the most important tasks for preparation of a future manned mission to Mars is to create a space suit, which ensures efficient and safe operation of the man on the planet surface. The concept of space suit (SS) utilisation on the Mars surface will be determined mainly by the Mars mission scenario. Currently the preference is given to utilisation of robotics with the crew driving a Mars rover vehicle, whereby the suit will be used solely as an additional safety means. However, one cannot exclude the necessity of a durable self-contained stay of the man outside a pressurised compartment, to pick up, for instance, soil samples or do certain repair work in case of an emergency. The requirements to the Mars suit and especially to the personal self-contained life support system (LSS) will depend in many respects on the Mars environmental conditions, the space vehicle system concept and performance characteristics, the airlock and its interface design, the availability of expendable elements for the LSS, etc. The paper reviews principal problems, which have to be solved during development of the Martian suit. A special attention is paid to the issue of suited man mobility during traversing on the planet surface. The paper also reviews the arguments for application of a suit semi-rigid design concept and evaluates potentialities of using certain elements of the existing “Orlan” type suit. The paper presents results of a number of studies on selection of the planetary SS enclosure concept and on experimental evaluation of mobility of the lower torso and leg enclosures in conjunction with a specially designed prototype model (tentative model) of the SS enclosure.