this isn't your traditional bathing suit
it's actually nasa's
exploration extravehicular mobility unit
or
xemu the first new flight spacesuit
developed by the agency in over 40 years
and it's what the next astronauts will
wear when we finally go back to the moon
in 2024 but before its boots touch the
lunar surface
the suit must be tested rigorously
we know that if we don't do our job well
we can kill somebody
testing isn't just about making sure it
functions it's about making sure the
astronauts who use it
come back home safe we are a life
support system
and so that is something that we all
know and
keep in the back of our minds every day
as we do our job because
rule number one is crew members come
home this is amy
and amy has to make sure the suit can
stand up to
a lot the artemis program plans to take
crews to the moon's south pole for
months at a time in shadowy regions that
could drop to minus 370 degrees
fahrenheit or even lower
and astronauts will have to double as
geologists especially given nasa's
discovery of the presence of ice on the
moon
something that could help fuel rockets
turning the moon into a gas station
on route to mars so the xcmu testing
process
has been long and grueling with some
tests run twice the recommended amount
just to be safe it's all broken up into
three phases
development design verification and
qualification
the first phase is all about finalizing
a design
amy and her team try out a bunch of
different lower quality components
before deciding which design to
actually build you know it's like a car
is your car steering good well until you
put it in a car it's hard to tell
you can put different shoulders in and
see yeah does this shoulder work better
than the shoulder
once that's all figured out the suit
moves to the designed verification
stage the idea is that we're going to
stay on the moon for months at a time
and that means that you need to be very
flexible and capable
and you need to be durable now we've
been to the moon before
but not for this long not this location
and not with the knowledge we have now
we are being asked to go to permanently
shadowed regions because there
are gases in those places that stay very
very cold and i'm talking like mine is
370 degrees fahrenheit cold they won't
be working in temperatures that cold
but the suit does have to withstand
temperatures as high as 250 degrees
fahrenheit
and as low as minus 250 degrees
fahrenheit
a wider range than ever before to make
sure it holds up
nasa tests the suit in what's basically
a big vacuum sealed
oven slash freezer both manned and
unmanned
chamber being here at johnson space
center is the human rated thermal vacuum
chamber we'll use
we'll go in there with a portable life
support system on our back then we'll
test the suit through its different
phases of operation
to make sure that it does hold up and
operates in the vacuum
and in the thermal environments that
we'll see along with temperature
controlled
the suit must be durable when we first
went to the moon scientists were
concerned that the regolith covered
lunar surface
wouldn't support the weight of people
and machines but the real issue with the
regolith is that it's sharp and dusty
something that could really muck up the
fine-tuned workings of a spacesuit
so where is the best place to test dust
resistance
in an environment that's dusty and rocky
this is what durability testing in the
arizona desert looks like
and that kind of tells you what parts of
your suit are affected by the dust what
does it
have a problem with the dust so much is
your mobility system really able to walk
over this rough terrain
those kinds of things but the desert
simulates the terrain of the moon
and not a lot else in order to test
mobility in lunar gravity
the engineers have to move someplace
wetter like the
neutral buoyancy laboratories are a big
pool in this giant pool
40 feet deep astronauts can see what it
feels like to be on the moon
to a point it's not really like moon
gravity
um because as you try to walk you have
to you know push through the water but
as a
reasonable analog to do some activities
it's a good one
activity is like ladder climbing using
tools
and ceremonially planting the american
flag
these tests let engineers collect
objective data about the suit's life
support system
and mobility but also subjective data
about the crew's experience using it
our suit's not done until they say it's
done and they like it and they think
they can use it to do their job
now qualification testing includes a lot
of the same stuff as design verification
but there are a few key differences part
of it is the paperwork
things get a little more strict in the
qualification stage we have a lot of
care taken to make sure that we
understand everything that is done
with flight hardware you change the
screw out there's a piece of paperwork
that goes that says
this new screw got put in on this date
to this particular place
since this is the stage that lower
quality test hardware gets swapped out
for the fancy flight ready stuff
testing can slow down a bit but in the
end
when you do qualification testing you're
really
using that as a proof for everybody to
put in front of everybody that says
this suit is good to fly in space and
once they get the green light
that's when you load it onto a vehicle
take it up to space and use it in a
mission
nasa plans to send the xcmu to use on
the international space station in 2023
to collect flight data and confirm the
suit's overall performance
it's important to note that this isn't
actually considered a test
at nasa we need to feel like we're very
confident
that that hardware is going to work the
way it was required to work before we
fly it
um so we don't we go into flight calling
it a test
instead it's a flight data mission and
it will be one of the last major
milestones before the xcmu is ready to
land on the moon
spacesuit testing can take years
thousands of elbow bends and even more
tests than we're able to show here
but it's all necessary to ensure the
comfort functionality and
most of all safety for nasa's astronauts
oh and i know you're probably curious
about how they test the suit's bathroom
situation
well nasa has basically created a diaper
and we use simulated urine just keep
things tight here
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