The North American aerospace company SpaceX announced last Saturday that Polaris Dawn, the first of the program’s three human spaceflight missions, will be launched into orbit next summer. On this occasion it presented the new suits for its astronauts’ space outings.
During the five-day mission, the crew will carry out SpaceX’s first extravehicular activity (more commonly known as EVA or spacewalk) by Dragon, which will also be the first commercial spacewalk by an astronaut. This historic milestone will also be the first time that four astronauts will be exposed to the vacuum of space at the same time.
In February 2022, Jared Isaacman and SpaceX announced the Polaris Program, an effort designed to rapidly advance human spaceflight capabilities and, at the same time, support important causes here on Earth. Supporting the crew during the spacewalk will be SpaceX’s newly developed EVA suit, an evolution of the Intravehicular Activity (IVA) suit that crews currently wear aboard Dragon human spaceflight missions.
Developed with mobility in mind, SpaceX teams incorporated new materials, manufacturing processes and novel joint designs to provide greater flexibility to astronauts in pressurized scenarios while maintaining comfort in non-pressurized scenarios.
The 3D printed helmet incorporates a new visor to reduce glare during EVA in addition to the new Heads-Up Display (HUD) and a camera that provides information about the pressure, temperature and relative humidity of the suit. The suit also incorporates reliability and redundancy improvements during a spacewalk, adding seals and pressure valves to help ensure the suit remains pressurized and the crew remains safe.
All of these improvements to the EVA suit are part of a scalable design, allowing teams to produce and scale to different body types as SpaceX seeks to create greater accessibility to space for all of humanity.
While Polaris Dawn will be the first time SpaceX’s EVA suit is used in low-Earth orbit, the suit’s final destination is much further away from our home planet. Building a base on the Moon and a city on Mars will require developing a scalable design for the millions of spacesuits needed to help make life multiplanetary.
