Author Topic: SpaceX IVA Suit (Crew Dragon Pressure Suit)  (Read 200004 times)

Offline Lars-J

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Re: SpaceX IVA Suit (Crew Dragon Pressure Suit)
« Reply #20 on: 09/22/2015 10:22 pm »
It's photoShopped. The word comes from the software Photoshop.

Since Photoshop is not the only software you can use for this purpose, photochopping is a broader descriptive.

Not really. Look at the definition linked above. Photochop, when used has been a pejorative term, used to highlight how someone has ruined (or chopped up) a photo. "Photoshopping" or "'shopping" has become a widely used term for photo manipulation using photo editing software, even when the actual application used is not known.

Words mean things. Make up your own meaning if you want, but don't be surprised if challenged.

Offline Dante80

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Re: SpaceX IVA Suit (Crew Dragon Pressure Suit)
« Reply #21 on: 09/22/2015 10:23 pm »
I don't understand why spacex is doing this in house.

There's no synergy with anything else they're building and space suits are available more or less off the shelf from established manufacturers who have economies of scale.

Weren't they doing this together with Orbital Outfitters?

Offline HMXHMX

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Re: SpaceX IVA Suit (Crew Dragon Pressure Suit)
« Reply #22 on: 09/22/2015 10:30 pm »
I don't understand why spacex is doing this in house.

There's no synergy with anything else they're building and space suits are available more or less off the shelf from established manufacturers who have economies of scale.

Weren't they doing this together with Orbital Outfitters?

Yeah.  And once upon a time they had Barber-Nichols building turbopumps, Spincraft building propellant tank domes, and Cimarron Composites building helium tanks, too.

Perhaps an object lesson for vendors...

Offline arachnitect

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Re: SpaceX IVA Suit (Crew Dragon Pressure Suit)
« Reply #23 on: 09/22/2015 10:34 pm »
I don't understand why spacex is doing this in house.

There's no synergy with anything else they're building and space suits are available more or less off the shelf from established manufacturers who have economies of scale.

Weren't they doing this together with Orbital Outfitters?

Yeah.  And once upon a time they had Barber-Nichols building turbopumps, Spincraft building propellant tank domes, and Cimarron Composites building helium tanks, too.

Perhaps an object lesson for vendors...

spacex has a machine shop. Do they have a sewing shop as well?

Forgot about Orbital Outfitters, that makes a little more sense. But spacex is basically their only client.

Offline Dalhousie

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Re: SpaceX IVA Suit (Crew Dragon Pressure Suit)
« Reply #24 on: 09/22/2015 10:43 pm »
I don't know if it's a genuine suit or not, but Nikolay Moiseev from Final Frontier Design, who was involved with the design of both the Sokol and Orlan space suits back in Russia, responded to my parallel post on the unofficial SpaceX Facebook group and had the following to say about the photo and video:

"TIGHT FIT HELMET HAS A PROBLEM WITH CO2 WASHOUT . THE VISOR CLOSE TO THE FACE WILL BE COVERED WITH FOG FROM BREATH. The proposed helmet does not have the neck ring/neck disconnect as ACES, so it has some new closure? If you have conformal (close fit as motorbike style) helmet, you have to have neck bearing and neck joint......."

Most of these problems with have been dealt with will full face masks and snug helmets used in the diving industry
Apologies in advance for any lack of civility - it's unintended

Offline cdleonard

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Re: SpaceX IVA Suit (Crew Dragon Pressure Suit)
« Reply #25 on: 09/22/2015 11:54 pm »
It's not clear what the goals of this suit project are.

1) Just protect Dragon crew in the case of emergency depressurization?
2) Will it be capable of full EVA?
3) Is it intended to work on Mars?

My understanding is that much of the bulk of a suit is an outer layer intended for micrometeoroid protection. If the suit doesn't need to be EVA-capable then maybe all you need is a pressure suit as for high altitude aircraft or project Mercury. This seems more consistent with the pictures we've seen.

It's not clear if micrometeoroid protection is required on Mars to the same extent. The thin atmosphere might provide some protection.

Offline Zed_Noir

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Re: SpaceX IVA Suit (Crew Dragon Pressure Suit)
« Reply #26 on: 09/23/2015 01:25 am »
It's not clear what the goals of this suit project are.

1) Just protect Dragon crew in the case of emergency depressurization?
2) Will it be capable of full EVA?
3) Is it intended to work on Mars?

My understanding is that much of the bulk of a suit is an outer layer intended for micrometeoroid protection. If the suit doesn't need to be EVA-capable then maybe all you need is a pressure suit as for high altitude aircraft or project Mercury. This seems more consistent with the pictures we've seen.

It's not clear if micrometeoroid protection is required on Mars to the same extent. The thin atmosphere might provide some protection.

AIUI SpaceX is making their own launch & entry spacesuits for going to and from LEO in the Dragon. It might be capable of limited EVA in an emergency. IMO the current SpaceX spacesuit is too heavy and bulky for Mars.

Think SpaceX will eventually make their own EVA suits and Mars surface exclusion suits. They are a vertically integrated company after all. Might even sale some suits to others.
 
High altitude pressure suits are not suitable for use in micro-gravity and vacuum. They lack in articulation and have a tendency to balloon out.

Offline su27k

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Re: SpaceX IVA Suit (Crew Dragon Pressure Suit)
« Reply #27 on: 09/23/2015 05:39 am »
I don't understand why spacex is doing this in house.

Getting the experience needed for designing Mars suit? Besides I assume NASA is paying for this, so why not?

Quote
There's no synergy with anything else they're building and space suits are available more or less off the shelf from established manufacturers who have economies of scale.

I'm not aware there is economy of scale for spacesuits, it's not like people are lining up to buy them. Looks to me SpaceX represents 50% of the US market for this type of suits.

Quote
spacex has a machine shop. Do they have a sewing shop as well?

Didn't sewing machine oil caused a Dragon delay once? So I assume they do have sewing shop...

Offline HMXHMX

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Re: SpaceX IVA Suit (Crew Dragon Pressure Suit)
« Reply #28 on: 09/23/2015 05:47 am »
I don't understand why spacex is doing this in house.

There's no synergy with anything else they're building and space suits are available more or less off the shelf from established manufacturers who have economies of scale.

Weren't they doing this together with Orbital Outfitters?

Yeah.  And once upon a time they had Barber-Nichols building turbopumps, Spincraft building propellant tank domes, and Cimarron Composites building helium tanks, too.

Perhaps an object lesson for vendors...

spacex has a machine shop. Do they have a sewing shop as well?

Forgot about Orbital Outfitters, that makes a little more sense. But spacex is basically their only client.

OO hasn't worked for SpaceX for some time.  XCOR is a client, from publicly available sources.

Offline Garrett

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Re: SpaceX IVA Suit (Crew Dragon Pressure Suit)
« Reply #29 on: 09/23/2015 07:46 am »
Didn't sewing machine oil caused a Dragon delay once? So I assume they do have sewing shop...
I believe they've always required sewing for things like harnesses for cargo and straps for seats. I think I remember Molly McCormick (@Molliway on Twitter) saying that she was involved in the latter (seat straps).
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Offline Impaler

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Re: SpaceX IVA Suit (Crew Dragon Pressure Suit)
« Reply #30 on: 09/23/2015 05:55 pm »
It really makes no sense for SpaceX to bring suit production in-house.  The skill set is very specialized and totally different from any of their existing employee bases, their are 'New Space' startups doing the same thing and offering products at very attractive prices that they could buy right now for what amounts to spare change.  Even with all the massive consolidation in our Airo-space industry the suits are

And their volume isn't going to be significant for decades, when NASA astronauts fly to ISS on Dragon I'm sure NASA will have them wearing NASA made IVA suits.  A single SpaceX 'pilot' is the most they will ever ride on the Dragon so SpaceX needs literally just 1 suit until they are landing people on Mars, a company doing space tourism like Virgin Galactic or Blue Origins would need a much larger volume as the customer won't have their own suit.

Offline nadreck

Re: SpaceX IVA Suit (Crew Dragon Pressure Suit)
« Reply #31 on: 09/23/2015 06:01 pm »


And their volume isn't going to be significant for decades, when NASA astronauts fly to ISS on Dragon I'm sure NASA will have them wearing NASA made IVA suits.  A single SpaceX 'pilot' is the most they will ever ride on the Dragon so SpaceX needs literally just 1 suit until they are landing people on Mars, a company doing space tourism like Virgin Galactic or Blue Origins would need a much larger volume as the customer won't have their own suit.

My understanding is that suits were part of the bid for Crew (quick google and: http://spacenews.com/nasa-mandates-pressurized-spacesuits-for-commercial-crew-fliers/), and that there will not be a SpaceX 'pilot' on ISS Crew flights.
It is all well and good to quote those things that made it past your confirmation bias that other people wrote, but this is a discussion board damnit! Let us know what you think! And why!

Online meekGee

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Re: SpaceX IVA Suit (Crew Dragon Pressure Suit)
« Reply #32 on: 09/23/2015 06:41 pm »
It really makes no sense for SpaceX to bring suit production in-house.  The skill set is very specialized and totally different from any of their existing employee bases, their are 'New Space' startups doing the same thing and offering products at very attractive prices that they could buy right now for what amounts to spare change.  Even with all the massive consolidation in our Airo-space industry the suits are

And their volume isn't going to be significant for decades, when NASA astronauts fly to ISS on Dragon I'm sure NASA will have them wearing NASA made IVA suits.  A single SpaceX 'pilot' is the most they will ever ride on the Dragon so SpaceX needs literally just 1 suit until they are landing people on Mars, a company doing space tourism like Virgin Galactic or Blue Origins would need a much larger volume as the customer won't have their own suit.

Irrespective of how much you believe SpaceX can follow through on their ambitions, you can't fault them for being consistent about these ambitions.

SpaceX has very high goals.  They are planning a satellite constellation whose launch rates will roughly equal that of the rest of the world, combined.

I suspect that their HSF ambitions are such that they have reason the become the world experts in spacesuits.  Before you send people on a multi-year trip, you have to do a lot of studying of the suit, and there's currently nobody who's built a Mars surface suit yet - not for real.
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Offline arachnitect

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Re: SpaceX IVA Suit (Crew Dragon Pressure Suit)
« Reply #33 on: 09/23/2015 06:43 pm »

There's no synergy with anything else they're building and space suits are available more or less off the shelf from established manufacturers who have economies of scale.

I'm not aware there is economy of scale for spacesuits, it's not like people are lining up to buy them. Looks to me SpaceX represents 50% of the US market for this type of suits.


Air Force and NASA buy a lot of pressure suits.

Offline Ludus

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Re: SpaceX IVA Suit (Crew Dragon Pressure Suit)
« Reply #34 on: 09/23/2015 07:02 pm »
I don't understand why spacex is doing this in house.

There's no synergy with anything else they're building and space suits are available more or less off the shelf from established manufacturers who have economies of scale.

I had the impression it was because ideas like mechanical counter pressure skin tight suits could be a big advance in mobility (and cool factor) and it just wasn't being done elsewhere seriously. Kinda like rapid reusable fly back boosters, LAS integrated in spacecraft and made reusable and multipurpose, mass produced low cost satellites etc.

Online MP99

Re: SpaceX IVA Suit (Crew Dragon Pressure Suit)
« Reply #35 on: 09/26/2015 11:03 am »


I don't understand why spacex is doing this in house.

There's no synergy with anything else they're building and space suits are available more or less off the shelf from established manufacturers who have economies of scale.

If SpaceX want to send thousands of people to Mars, they'll also need thousands of suits.

They've also said they want to make the costs per person incredibly low. I could imagine that current suits would be a substantial cost. How much are existing suits?

Alternative business model:- we'll take you there for free, but you'll need to buy $20m of stuff when you get there - a bit like the gift shop you have to go through as you leave a museum.

Cheers, Martin

Offline Gordon C

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Re: SpaceX IVA Suit (Crew Dragon Pressure Suit)
« Reply #36 on: 09/26/2015 12:50 pm »
The suit destroyed on the last spacex flight authority million.

Offline Mongo62

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Re: SpaceX IVA Suit (Crew Dragon Pressure Suit)
« Reply #37 on: 12/27/2015 02:40 am »
Interesting section on SpaceX spacesuits in this article:

How Elon Musk Plans on Reinventing the World (and Mars)

Quote
[...] Still, you do what you can. And so this Monday evening, his mind is on space suits. Right now, specifically, he needs to go see the latest secret prototype of a new kind of space suit—the first to be made by a private rocket company for astronauts to wear into orbit and beyond, which he hopes will go into use in 2017.

"We're trying to have a good balance between aesthetics and functionality," he explains, sitting in his office at SpaceX. "It's tricky to have something that works in reality and looks good."

As with much of what Musk does, there is a plan, but then, behind that, there's often a bigger plan. To Musk, it's obvious that this new space suit not only needs to work well but also needs to look cool, because he needs people—regular people like you and me—to imagine themselves wearing it.

"If we're to inspire the next generation to want to go beyond Earth," he says, "they have to think they want to wear that suit one day. The easiest way to make a pressure suit work is to make it very bulky, and have lots of sort of things poking out." He laughs, and then offers another illustration that the way Elon Musk's mind works is both quite brilliant and quite entertainingly unusual. "Actually," he says, "one of the more embarrassing things about space suits is that the backside kind of pooches out pretty bad. I don't know if you've seen any of the Soyuz space suits?"

I concede that I can't bring to mind a rear view.

"That's because they never show you that angle!" he says, as though vindicated. "It's really bad." Then he swivels round to the computer behind him and actually does a Google image search to show me. "You can barely stand upright," he says, scrolling. All the views that come up are head-on, but this, he proclaims with satisfaction, only proves his point. "They always kind of avoid the side image."

He also explains the underlying physics dilemma: "Imagine that you've got to be able to bend over, but it's rigid material—then, when you stand up, it's gonna pooch out really significantly in the back. So we wanted to have something which would not do that."

So, I ask, you can mitigate big-butt space syndrome?

"Yeah," he replies, though a little uncertainly, as if he's not quite convinced I've accurately outlined the technical parameters of the problem. "We just wanted it to look good. Feel good."

Do your suits look anything like space suits have looked before?

"They look a bit more like space suits in the movies," he says. "If you've seen an advanced space suit in the movies, it looks a bit more like that. Unfortunately those things don't work. They just work in Hollywood."

[...]

No one outside of a few select insiders has seen the suit, I am told, but eventually he invites me to come take a look, as long as I don't describe the suit itself.

[...]

We head into one of these areas now, until we reach a glass-­walled room identified as space-suit development.

Inside, a man is waiting, a little awkwardly, in a next­-generation SpaceX astronaut suit, visor open. He stands there for the next 20 minutes as Musk and his team discuss it. Other versions, presumably earlier or alternative prototypes, hang on a rack in the back of the room. Musk is not at all overbearing, but he asks a lot of very specific questions—about fabrics, about colors, about placements—and he makes comments about what is and is not flattering. They discuss some of the practical constraints imposed by the fact that this suit has to work in space. There's also quite a lot of laughter. Musk seems both pleased and dissatisfied with what he is seeing; he has plenty of suggestions for improvements. Still, I think it would be fair to say that his description—more like space suits in the movies—is a pretty good one. And I trust he won't mind my observing that there is no sign whatsoever of pooching.
« Last Edit: 12/27/2015 02:44 am by Mongo62 »

Offline RanulfC

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Re: SpaceX IVA Suit (Crew Dragon Pressure Suit)
« Reply #38 on: 12/29/2015 06:02 pm »
And keeping that quote in mind (ie: "To Musk, it's obvious that this new space suit not only needs to work well but also needs to look cool, because he needs people—regular people like you and me—to imagine themselves wearing it.") the idea of some people wearing straight out spandex space suits... Supervisor just walked by, AGHHH! Mind Bleach needed! :)

On the other hand that's what they make "cover-alls/jumpsuits" for, no? (Technically "anti-chaffing outer wear I suppose :) )

Randy
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Offline QuantumG

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Re: SpaceX IVA Suit (Crew Dragon Pressure Suit)
« Reply #39 on: 12/29/2015 09:30 pm »
Look at the inside of a Dragon. See all that material? That's a lot of stitches.
Human spaceflight is basically just LARPing now.

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