A new breed of spaceship requires a new breed of spacesuits.
For the first time since the space shuttle era a decade ago, American astronauts are expected to fly to space aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft May 27, marking the first commercial crew flight for NASA and the first time astronauts will launch from American soil in nearly a decade.
The SpaceX spacesuits are a cool, one-piece white design, and much sleeker than the bulky space shuttle launch suits, which were also known as the Advanced Crew Escape Suit (ACES). So slim was the new SpaceX spacesuit design that in 2018, the company's founder Elon Musk had to reassure concerned Instagram followers after the reveal: "It definitely works. You can just jump in a vacuum chamber with it, and it's fine."
The astronauts flying on the first crewed test flight of SpaceX's Crew Dragon have also commented on differences with the SpaceX suit, compared to other spacesuits astronauts have used in different years.
"This [SpaceX] suit is significantly different than the suit we wore on shuttle," Hurley, a veteran of space shuttle flights STS-129 and STS-135, said during a preflight press conference May 1, without going into much detail. He alluded to some differences to the Sokol suit the Russians use for spaceflight, but added he "never actually went through the entire suit-up process" since the Sokol was used as a backup if something went wrong during his brief mission to the International Space Station (ISS).
The SpaceX spacesuits are a cool, one-piece white design, and much sleeker than the bulky space shuttle launch suits, which were also known as the Advanced Crew Escape Suit (ACES). So slim was the new SpaceX spacesuit design that in 2018, the company's founder Elon Musk had to reassure concerned Instagram followers after the reveal: "It definitely works. You can just jump in a vacuum chamber with it, and it's fine."
The astronauts flying on the first crewed test flight of SpaceX's Crew Dragon have also commented on differences with the SpaceX suit, compared to other spacesuits astronauts have used in different years.
"This [SpaceX] suit is significantly different than the suit we wore on shuttle," Hurley, a veteran of space shuttle flights STS-129 and STS-135, said during a preflight press conference May 1, without going into much detail. He alluded to some differences to the Sokol suit the Russians use for spaceflight, but added he "never actually went through the entire suit-up process" since the Sokol was used as a backup if something went wrong during his brief mission to the International Space Station (ISS).
Subsequently, two of these SpaceX spacesuits proved their worth in space, before being used by humans. One flew with the Tesla-driving dummy that launched on a Falcon Heavy rocket in 2018, and another was used on the dummy Ripley that flew aboard the uncrewed SpaceX Crew Dragon Demo-1 test flight to the ISS in 2019.
If it looks like the spacesuit is built for a movie set, that could be because the suit designer is legendary Hollywood costume designer Jose Fernandez, who is known for costumes in blockbusters such as "Wonder Woman," "Wolverine," "Batman vs. Superman" and "Captain America: Civil War."
"What we're doing on the on SpaceX side … is to kind of reach back and kind of pull forward, maybe, a retro styling or a different way of creating their own unique kind of mission symbol or symbology rather than trying to copy what was done on the space shuttle side," said Behnken, a veteran of space shuttle flights STS-123 and STS-130, in a pre-flight video interview May 4 on NASA's YouTube channel.
Behnken added that the pumpkin suit was an iconic part of space shuttle launches, and he expects the same will happen soon for the SpaceX spacesuit. "Both of [the suits] have succeeded, I think, in terms of becoming iconic in terms of symbolizing the mission in front of us, and the excitement associated with what we're going to accomplish."
SpaceX has kept some design features of its spacesuits private, but it has emphasized the suits are meant to be symbiotic with the large computer panels that astronauts will use to monitor Dragon systems and navigate to the International Space Station. Each suit is custom made for the astronaut, according to NASA.
SpaceX's spacesuit "is designed to be functional, lightweight, and to offer protection from potential depressurization," NASA added. The protection against depressurization would be similar to the ACES suit, which had an emergency breathing system and the ability to fully pressurize if the cabin suddenly lost oxygen.
"A single connection point on the suit's thigh attaches life support systems, including air and power connections," the agency said. "The helmet is custom manufactured using 3D-printing technology and includes integrated valves, mechanisms for visor retraction and locking, and microphones within the helmet's structure."
