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NASA is already in the process of preparing for its upcoming mission back to the Moon under the Artemis program. The agency has now begun developing and testing the new spacesuits that the astronauts will be wearing on the big mission.
NASA is currently developing and testing a new type of spacesuit referred to as the Exploration Extravehicular Mobility Unit or xEMU. The new spacesuit will help protect the astronauts from the extreme conditions found on the surface of the Moon and will be different from the spacesuits worn by the astronauts who journeyed on the previous missions.
On a webcast quarterly meeting of NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel last week, former associate administrator for commercial space transportation at the Federal Aviation Administration, George Nield, said that the development of the spacesuit is on schedule. Nield explained that NASA plans to create five more xEMU suits in the first batch. One suit will be subject to design verification tests, the second suit will be up for qualification testing, and the third suit will be tested aboard the International Space Station.
The last two suits will be used for the Artemis 3 mission, where astronauts will be returning to the lunar surface. In the Artemis 3 mission, the astronauts will also need a cooling garment and Nield revealed that NASA has finished the first prototype of the said garment. Nield also shared that the agency has yet to upgrade the Portable Life Support System that the astronauts will carry to stay alive, which is now in development.
Aside from NASA, Elon Musk’s private space firm, SpaceX is also at work, having received a government contract to develop and launch military satellites that could track down missiles. The contract with SpaceX was announced by the US Space Development Agency and is worth $115 million.
“This set of contract awards will initiate the development of the first eight low-cost proliferated WFOV SVs. The capability demonstrated by the Tracking Layer Tranche 0 will provide missile warning and tracking information to national defense authorities and tracking and cueing data for missile defense movements,” said the SDA this week.
This is the second military contract SpaceX has received. The first was from the US Space Force, where SpaceX will be in charge of launching 40 percent of its secret missions from 2022 to 2027.
