NASA xEMU spacesuit mock-up

[frankgb]

Thought I'd share some of my work since I used a few tidbits off this site for designing my suit. I've been lucky this semester to upgrade our current Apollo style spacesuit mock-ups to xEMU for my graduate work on human factors testing for a lunar lander we developed. The HUT is fiberglass with embedded aluminium rings and double hemispherical domes. All the hardware and softgoods were designed and manufactured by me, except for the gloves which I got from orbital surplus on ebay and some aces style connectors from antarusfree. My RTV fingertips didn't de-mold well, but I have made the patterns and prototypes for EMU gloves to make next year with restraint gloves and glove connectors as well.

Checking the diameters and angles

CAD design

Learning how to fiberglass on a 38% scale

Mini HUT with metal inlay

rolling convolute concept

CAM for HUT mold

HUT foam about to be CNCd

Milling the positive

Molds finished, ready to be taped and fiberglassed

Fiberglass 1/2 of the HUT

Joining the HUT halves

3D printed DCU

Checking the scale with covered DCU

Space pants

HUT #1 & 2 joined, rings installed and ready for paint

Testing out the fit

Checking it out with some flight controls

Shoulders and arms installed

An engineer in his happy place.


Thanks for checking out my photos. Next semester the engineering hits with ventilation system and thermal/flow analysis, working LCVG, comm system, functioning helmet disconnects, DON/DOFF assembly, and working DCU with umbilical connector.

 

[lmgill]

Great job. I thought those gloves looked familiar.
I was asked by JSC to produce some lightweight xEMU's for habitat volume testing, is this what this will be used for?
Are the xEMU rolling convolutes still using bearings, or are they switching to a webbing axial restraint like what you have made?
If you check ebay, you can occasionally find Kaydon thin race bearings pretty cheap (Well cheaper than new) that you could use for the scye bearing and the upper arm bearing. Having a scye bearing is almost a must, for making the rolling convolute usable, even in a mock-up.

 

[frankgb]

Great job. I thought those gloves looked familiar.
I was asked by JSC to produce some lightweight xEMU's for habitat volume testing, is this what this will be used for?
Are the xEMU rolling convolutes still using bearings, or are they switching to a webbing axial restraint like what you have made?
If you check ebay, you can occasionally find Kaydon thin race bearings pretty cheap (Well cheaper than new) that you could use for the scye bearing and the upper arm bearing. Having a scye bearing is almost a must, for making the rolling convolute usable, even in a mock-up.

The gloves are great and our test subjects love wearing them, so thanks! I'm pretty sure the convolutes are still using bearings, but I wasn't convinced I could 3d print anything that would last for years and I only had 5 weeks to design and build 2 suits on top of work and school. So it made sense from a manufacturing point of view to use webbing straps instead. There actual are working scye and upper arm bearings! I 3D printed the races and will try my hand next semester at either CNCing new races or kaydon press fit.

Not sure what else jsc will use them for, but our big concern is don/doff volume. Nasa requires 7.5m3 for don/doff which is the major driver for our spacecraft design. We're also trying to see if they could be used at all for Iva ops instead of bringing another suit.

 

[antarusfree]

Very interesting project. I am looking forward to your progress.
Those glove disconnects look familiar

 

[Flavio]

Progetto molto interessante. Attendo con impazienza i tuoi progressi.
Quelle disconnessioni dei guanti sembrano familiari : D

how can i buy the file of the gloves disconnectors?

 

[Gilmortar]

you work on Canaveral? since your profile pic is of you on the lead road to ULA's SLC and all lol