Surface Extravehicular Activity Research Articles

Performance Risks During Surface Extravehicular Activity and Potential Mitigation Using Multimodal Displays.

BACKGROUND: Surface extravehicular activity (sEVA) will be a critical component of future human missions to the Moon. sEVA presents novel risks to astronaut crews not associated with microgravity operations due to fundamental differences in task demands, physiology, environment, and operations of working on the lunar surface. Multimodal spacesuit informatics displays have been proposed as a method of mitigating sEVA risk by increasing operator autonomy.METHODS: A formalized literature review was conducted. In total, 95 journal articles, conference papers, and technical reports were included. Characteristics of U.S. spacesuits were reviewed, ranging from the Apollo A7L to the xEMU Z-2.5. Multimodal display applications were then reviewed and assessed for their potential in aiding sEVA operations.RESULTS: Through literature review 25 performance impairments were identified. Performance impairments caused by the spacesuit represented the greatest number of sEVA challenges. Multimodal displays were mapped to impairments and approximately 36% of performance impairments could be aided by using display interfaces.DISCUSSION: Multimodal displays may provide additional benefits for alleviating performance impairments during sEVA. Utility of multimodal displays may be greater in certain performance impairment domains, such as spacesuit-related impairments.Zhang JY, Anderson AP. Performance risks during surface extravehicular activity and potential mitigation using multimodal displays. Aerosp Med Hum Perform. 2023; 94(1):34-41.

Commercial Spaceflight Preparation and Extravehicular Activities Training: The Next Generation

Commercial orbital spaceflight vehicles are now a reality and are expected to carry passengers in the next year or 2. SpaceX and Boeing should begin their commercial flight services to the International Space Station (ISS) before or during 2020. Furthermore, companies such as Bigelow and Axiom aim to provide low Earth orbit destinations in the years ahead as ISS operations come to a close. The advent of these new vehicles and commercial space stations elicits a need for the development of dedicated commercial spaceflight training services to enable safe and productive spaceflight operations for commercial customers, including commercial extravehicular activity (EVA). Blue Abyss Ltd. is developing dedicated spaceflight training facilities and associated training curricula at several locations around the world including in the United States and the United Kingdom. The Blue Abyss U.K. facility will include the largest pool in the world, larger than the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory in Houston. The pool will include a 50-m deep shaft, and platforms at multiple depths for high-pressure training for technical diving and remotely operated vehicle work. A unique feature of the Blue Abyss neutral buoyancy training system will be the ability to combine virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) with neutral buoyancy EVA suit training for a totally immersive and realistic training experience. Full body suspension harnesses will also be utilized in conjunction with VR—AR to provide partial gravity simulation for lunar and Mars surface EVA training and suit testing. Among other services, Blue Abyss with its partners will offer a parabolic flight capability to provide weightless and partial gravity familiarization, orientation, and training. These flights will be used to provide a realistic bespoke training experience that can include pressure suit don—doffing and airlock ingress and egress during weightlessness and the likes of Moon and Mars gravities. Once the development of the initial facilities is underway, Blue Abyss plans to construct additional facilities in the Middle East and Asia to serve regional energy and space sector needs. This article outlines the facilities, training curricula, and future aspirations for the Blue Abyss commercial spaceflight preparation services.

Prospects for Implementing Variable Emittance Thermal Control of Space Suits on the Martian Surface

Extravehicular activity (EVA) will play an important role as humans begin exploring Mars, which, in turn, will drive the need for new enabling technologies. For example, space suit heat rejection is currently achieved through the sublimation of ice water to the vacuum of space, a mechanism widely regarded as not feasible for use in Martian environment pressure ranges. As such, new, more robust thermal control mechanisms are needed for use under these conditions. Here, we evaluate the potential of utilizing a full suit, variable emittance radiator as the primary heat rejection mechanism during Martian surface EVAs. Diurnal and seasonal environment variations are considered for a latitude 27.5°S Martian surface exploration site. Surface environmental parameters were generated using the same methods used in the initial selection of the Mars Science Laboratory's initial landing site. This evaluation provides theoretical emittance setting requirements to evaluate the potential of the system's performance in a Mars environment. Parametric variations include metabolic rate, wind speed, radiator solar absorption, and total radiator area. The results showed that this thermal control architecture is capable of dissipating a standard nominal EVA metabolic load of 300 W in all the conditions with the exception of summer noon hours, where a supplemental heat rejection mechanism with a 250 W capacity must be included. These results can be used to identify when conditions are most favorable for conducting EVAs. The full suit, variable emittance radiator architecture provides a viable means of EVA thermal control on the Martian surface.

Dynamics of Extra-Vehicular Activities in Low-Gravity Surface Environments

Human spaceflight experience in extra-vehicular activity (EVA) is limited to two regimes: the micro-gravity environment of Earth orbit, and the lunar surface environment at one-sixth of Earth's gravity. Future human missions to low-gravity bodies, including asteroids, comets, and the moons of Mars, will require EVA techniques that are beyond the current experience base. In order to develop robust approaches for exploring these small bodies, the dynamics associated with human exploration on low-gravity surface must be characterized. This paper examines the translational and rotational motion of an astronaut on the surface of a small body, and it is shown that the low-gravity environment will pose challenges to the surface mobility of an astronaut, unless new tools and EVA techniques are developed. Possibilities for addressing these challenges are explored, and utilization of the International Space Station to test operational concepts and hardware in preparation for a low-gravity surface EVA is discussed.

Simulation and preparation of surface EVA in reduced gravity at the Marseilles Bay subsea analogue sites

Extravehicular activity (EVA) of astronauts during space missions is simulated nowadays underwater in neutral buoyancy facilities. Certain aspects of weightlessness can be reproduced underwater by adding buoyancy to a diver-astronaut, therefore exposing the subject to the difficulties of working without gravity. Such tests were done at the COMEX’ test pool in Marseilles in the 1980s to train for a French–Russian mission to the MIR station, for the development of the European HERMES shuttle and the COLUMBUS laboratory. However, space agencies are currently studying missions to other destinations than the International Space Station in orbit, such as the return to the Moon, NEO (near-Earth objects) or Mars. All these objects expose different gravities: Moon has one sixth of Earth’s gravity, Mars has a third of Earth’s gravity and asteroids have virtually no surface gravity; the astronaut “floats” above the ground. The preparation of such missions calls for a new concept in neutral buoyancy training, not on man-made structures, but on natural terrain, underwater, to simulate EVA operations such as sampling, locomotion or even anchoring in low gravity. Underwater sites can be used not only to simulate the reduced gravity that astronauts will experience during their field trips, also human factors like stress are more realistically reproduced in such environment.The Bay of Marseille hosts several underwater sites that can be used to simulate various geologic morphologies, such as sink-holes which can be used to simulate astronaut descends into craters, caves where explorations of lava tubes can be trained or monolithic rock structures that can be used to test anchoring devices (e.g., near Earth objects). Marseilles with its aerospace and maritime/offshore heritage hosts the necessary logistics and expertise that is needed to perform such simulations underwater in a safe manner (training of astronaut-divers in local test pools, research vessels, subsea robots and submarines).COMEX is currently preparing a space mission simulation in the Marseilles Bay (foreseen in June 2012), and the paper will give an overview of the different underwater analogue sites that are available to the scientific community for the simulation of surface EVA or the test of scientific instruments and devices.

First-order feasibility analysis of a space suit radiator concept based on estimation of water mass sublimation using Apollo mission data

Thermal control of a space suit during extravehicular activity (EVA) is typically accomplished by sublimating water to provide system cooling. Spacecraft, on the other hand, primarily rely on radiators to dissipate heat. Integrating a radiator into a space suit has been proposed as an alternative design that does not require mass consumption for heat transfer. While providing cooling without water loss offers potential benefits for EVA application, it is not currently practical to rely on a directional, fixed-emissivity radiator to maintain thermal equilibrium of a spacesuit where the radiator orientation, environmental temperature, and crew member metabolic heat load fluctuate unpredictably. One approach that might make this feasible, however, is the use of electrochromic devices that are capable of infrared emissivity modulation and can be actively controlled across the entire suit surface to regulate net heat flux for the system. Integrating these devices onto the irregular, compliant space suit material requires that they be fabricated on a flexible substrate, such as Kapton film. An initial assessment of whether or not this candidate technology presents a feasible design option was conducted by first characterizing the mass of water loss from sublimation that could theoretically be saved if an electrochromic suit radiator was employed for thermal control. This is particularly important for lunar surface exploration, where the expense of transporting water from Earth is excessive, but the technology is potentially beneficial for other space missions as well. In order to define a baseline for this analysis by comparison to actual data, historical documents from the Apollo missions were mined for comprehensive, detailed metabolic data from each lunar surface outing, and related data from NASA’s more recent “Advanced Lunar Walkback” tests were also analyzed. This metabolic database was then used to validate estimates for sublimator water consumption during surface EVAs, and solar elevation angles were added to predict the performance of an electrochromic space suit radiator under Apollo conditions. Then, using these actual data sets, the hypothetical water mass savings that would be expected had this technology been employed were calculated. The results indicate that electrochromic suit radiators would have reduced sublimator water consumption by 69.0% across the entire Apollo program, for a total mass savings of 68.5 kg to the lunar surface. Further analysis is needed to determine the net impact as a function of the complete system, taking into account both suit components and consumable mass, but the water mass reduction found in this study suggests a favorable system trade is likely.

Surface extra-vehicular activity emergency scenario management: Tools, procedures, and geologically related implications

Abstract Extra-vehicular activities (EVAs) are an essential part of human space exploration, but involve inherently dangerous procedures which can put crew safety at risk during a space mission. To help mitigate this risk, astronauts’ training programs spend substantial attention on preparing for surface EVA emergency scenarios. With the help of two Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) crews (61 and 65), wearing simulated spacesuits, the most important of these emergency scenarios were examined at three different types of locations that geologically and environmentally resemble lunar and Martian landscapes. These three platforms were analyzed geologically as well as topographically (utilizing a laser range finder with slope estimation capabilities and a slope determination software). Emergency scenarios were separated into four main groups: (1) suit issues, (2) general physiological, (3) attacks and (4) others. Specific tools and procedures were developed to address each scenario. The tools and processes were tested in the field under Mars-analog conditions with the suited subjects for feasibility and speed of execution.

Space Suit Bioenergetics: Framework and Analysis of Unsuited and Suited Activity

Metabolic costs limit the duration and intensity of extravehicular activity (EVA), an essential component of future human missions to the Moon and Mars. Energetics Framework: We present a framework for comparison of energetics data across and between studies. This framework, applied to locomotion, differentiates between muscle efficiency and energy recovery, two concepts often confused in the literature. The human run-walk transition in Earth gravity occurs at the point for which energy recovery is approximately the same for walking and running, suggesting a possible role for recovery in gait transitions. Muscular Energetics: Muscle physiology limits the overall efficiency by which chemical energy is converted through metabolism to useful work. Unsuited Locomotion: Walking and running use different methods of energy storage and release. These differences contribute to the relative changes in the metabolic cost of walking and running as gravity is varied, with the metabolic cost of locomoting at a given velocity changing in proportion to gravity for running and less than in proportion for walking. Space Suits: Major factors affecting the energetic cost of suited movement include suit pressurization, gravity, velocity, surface slope, and space suit configuration. Apollo lunar surface EVA traverse metabolic rates, while unexpectedly low, were higher than other activity categories. The Lunar Roving Vehicle facilitated even lower metabolic rates, thus longer duration EVAs. Muscles and tendons act like springs during running; similarly, longitudinal pressure forces in gas pressure space suits allow spring-like storage and release of energy when suits are self-supporting.