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ARM is a proposal that begins with a robotic spacecraft traveling to a near-Earth asteroid.<\/p>\n
Depending on which mission concept is chosen, the spacecraft would capture either a small asteroid or a sample of an asteroid and then drag that into a high Lunar orbit.<\/p>\n
An Orion spacecraft with a crew of two astronauts would then be launched on the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket to rendezvous and dock with that spacecraft, retrieve asteroid samples and return home.<\/p>\n
![\"2014-12-15](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/2014-12-15-18_51_58-nal_october_2014_human_spaceflight_update.pdf-Foxit-Reader-350x195.jpg\")
\u201cWe\u2019re going into the downselect (this week) and then we\u2019ll go do a mission concept review in mid-February,\u201d noted Steve Stich, head of the new Exploration Integration and Science Directorate at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) to NASASpaceFlight.com.<\/p>\n\u201cThen (we will) work it through the funding process as well \u2013 and hopefully \u2013 we\u2019ll get (political) approval to go do the flight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Per the evaluations, Mr. Stich is overseeing whether the Shuttle launch and entry suit \u2013 the ACES \u2013 can be modified for use not only as Orion\u2019s launch and re-entry suit, but also for EVAs on the ARM.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWhat we\u2019ve been trying to do with the Asteroid Redirect Mission is to be as efficient as we can with everything that either exists within our toolkit, or with some small modifications,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n
![\"2014-12-15](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/2014-12-15-18_46_31-Asteroid-Crewed-Mission-Stich-TAGGED2.pdf-Foxit-Reader-350x242.jpg\")
\u201cSo one of the things that we started looking at relative to EVAs on this Asteroid Redirect Mission are these launch and entry suits for Orion.\u201d<\/p>\nFor the ARM, the astronaut sample retrieval is planned to only utilize the Orion spacecraft. Mr. Stich explained that the EVA suits \u2013 currently in use on the International Space Station (ISS) and previously on the Space Shuttle \u2013 have some disadvantages given that requirement.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Shuttle EVA suits and the ones we use on Station are great for EVA, but they are \u2018hard\u2019 and they\u2019re not designed for launch and entry. So it was (a question of) \u2018can we use one suit for both?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cOrion has a certain amount of stowage and a certain amount of volume and we wanted to minimize cost by not flying an airlock. So (we thought) let\u2019s do it all out of Orion \u2013 that\u2019s why we ended up with this concept.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"2014-12-15](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/2014-12-15-18_57_37-Orion_-Marching-Toward-Flight-YouTube-350x233.jpg\")
Stich noted that the Orion program had already discussed using a derived version of ACES for launch and entry, likely based on its awareness of the volume constraints.<\/p>\n\u201cThey modified it to have what is called a suit loop interface, where it could connect to a fan that scrubs the carbon dioxide, versus the Shuttle suits that would just dump out oxygen into the cabin,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
\u201c(Compared to Shuttle) Orion is very small and that doesn\u2019t work very well. So they were going to use this suit anyway; (since) it\u2019s designed to go to vacuum \u2013 because if Orion loses pressure (the suit has) to protect the crew.<\/p>\n
\u201c(The question is) could we make it adaptable from a mobility perspective? It\u2019s designed to protect the crew only in the event of a rapid depress for launch and landing or if they\u2019ve got to get out of Orion, (but) could we use it for spacewalks?\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"2014-12-15](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/2014-12-15-18_44_22-Shuttle-ACES-Google-Search-350x280.jpg\")
Shuttle crews used ACES from 1994 through to the end of the program. However, it has rich history ranging back to the early days of human space flight.<\/p>\n\u201cThat suit is almost a derivative of the suit used for Gemini, way, way back in the Sixties,\u201d Mr. Stich added. \u201cIt\u2019s changed a little bit over time, (but) the important thing was can we do (EVA) tasks.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe actually practised a few tasks in the Neutral Buoyancy Lab (NBL) with some pretty complicated Station assembly tasks where you would take off a GPS box that\u2019s outside on the truss and we showed the crew could do it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe modified that suit, we put the same gloves that the Station crew uses on the suit, we adapted it to use the same boots that the spacewalking crews use on the Station, we added a drink bag and we added different cooling garments \u2013 so we did a few things and it looks very feasible.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"2014-12-15](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/2014-12-15-18_47_58-stich.pdf-Foxit-Reader-350x332.jpg\")
This suit \u2013 known as the Modified Advanced Crew Escape Suit, or MACES \u2013 has been in development for some time.<\/p>\n\u201cWe did a fair amount of work over the last 18 months to convince ourselves that this suit \u2013 this concept \u2013 looks feasible,\u201d Stich noted.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe crew office (Astronaut Office) has been involved, we\u2019ve had four or five astronauts that have flown on Space Station (and) done EVAs in the Space Station suit.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have worked in that suit in the NBL so they can kind of compare their experience in microgravity and then in the pool in the Station suit to what it\u2019s like to work in this Modified ACES in the water and how that might translate to zero-gravity.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"2014-12-15](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/2014-12-15-18_35_50-House-Space-Subcommittee-Hearing-Update-on-the-Space-Launch-System-Orion-350x230.jpg\")
Footage from a promotional video provided to a recent political hearing showed images from NBL runs using the suit during a mock up mission involving the hammering of samples free from an asteroid\u2019s surface.<\/p>\n\u201cWe did a series of about 12 runs in the Neutral Buoyancy Lab, modifying that suit \u2013 we added some arm bearings, we changed where the arm positions are \u2013 and we convinced ourselves that from a mobility perspective if the suit fit well, for about a four-hour EVA we thought we could make that suit work.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"2014-12-15](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/2014-12-15-18_42_48-www.nasa_.gov_sites_default_files_files_Asteroid-Crewed-Mission-Stich-TAGGED2.pdf-350x235.jpg\")
Mr, Stich, a former Space Shuttle flight director, recently became head of the new directorate overseeing evaluation of the MACES concept.<\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s called (the) \u2018Exploration Integration and Science Directorate\u2019 at JSC (Johnson Space Center), newly formed on August 11th, so we\u2019ve only been existence a few short months,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve combined what was ARES, the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science organization. They do sample curation \u2013 they do comet sample curation, they do asteroid sample curation \u2013 and we\u2019ve combined that with EVA, Exploration, mission planning, and integration and partnerships all in one office.<\/p>\n
Mr. Stich added that a big focus area in this new directorate is integrating Orion and SLS and planning missions.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe directorate makes sense in that you bring together scientists with spacewalk experts and then mission planning experts for these Exploration missions and put those all in one directorate together.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been an interesting three months.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Images: Via NASA.)<\/p>\n
(L2 is \u2013 as it has been for the past several years \u2013 providing full exclusive SLS and Exploration Planning coverage. To join L2, click here: http:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/l2\/)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NASA experts are evaluating the use of a modified version of the famous Space Shuttle launch and entry suit \u2013 or Advanced Crew Escape Suit (ACES) \u2013 for use not only during launch and re-entry for crews riding in Orion, but also for use on spacewalks (EVAs), such as during the proposed Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30092,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3826,567,8969,640],"class_list":["post-39438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-emu","tag-eva","tag-nea","tag-orion"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39438"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}