NASA's Commercial Spacesuit Program Just Hit a Major Snag

Slashdot reader Required Snark shared this article from Ars Technica:
Almost exactly two years ago, as it prepared for the next generation of human spaceflight, NASA chose a pair of private companies to design and develop new spacesuits. These were to be new spacesuits that would allow astronauts to both perform spacewalks outside the International Space Station as well as walk on the Moon as part of the Artemis program. Now, that plan appears to be in trouble, with one of the spacesuit providers — Collins Aerospace — expected to back out, Ars has learned. It's a blow for NASA, because the space agency really needs modern spacesuits.

NASA's Apollo-era suits have long been retired. The current suits used for spacewalks in low-Earth orbit are four decades old. 'These new capabilities will allow us to continue on the International Space Station and allows us to do the Artemis program and continue on to Mars,' said the director of Johnson Space Center, Vanessa Wyche, during a celebratory news conference in Houston two years ago. The two winning teams were led by Collins Aerospace and Axiom Space, respectively. They were eligible for task orders worth up to $3.5 billion — in essence NASA would rent the use of these suits for a couple of decades. Since then, NASA has designated Axiom to work primarily on a suit for the Moon and the Artemis Program, and Collins with developing a suit for operations in-orbit, such as space station servicing...

The agency has been experiencing periodic problems with the maintenance of the suits built decades ago, known as the Extravehicular Mobility Unit, which made its debut in the 1980s. NASA has acknowledged the suit has exceeded its planned design lifetime. Just this Monday, the agency had to halt a spacewalk after the airlock had been de-pressurized and the hatch opened due to a water leak in the service and cooling umbilical unit of Tracy Dyson's spacesuit. As a result of this problem, NASA will likely only be able to conduct a single spacewalk this summer, after initially planning three, to complete work outside the International Space Station.
Collins designed the original Apollo suits, according to the article. But a person familiar with the situation told Ars Technica that 'Collins has admitted they have drastically underperformed and have overspent' on their work, 'culminating in a request to be taken off the contract or renegotiate the scope and their budget.'

Ironically, the company's top's post on their account on Twitter/X is still a repost of NASA's February announcement that they're 'getting a nextx-generation spacesuit' developed by Collins Aerospace, and saying that the company 'recently completed a key NASA design milestone aboard a commercial microgravity aircraft.'

NASA's post said they needed the suit 'In order to advance NASA's spacewalking capabilities in low Earth orbit and to support continued maintenance and operations at the Space Station.'

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