Efforts by NASA to develop a next-generation spacesuit face significant cost and schedule challenges that will push back its availability to April 2025 at the earliest, according to audit by the agency’s inspector general.
Mark Carreau
Credit: NASA
Efforts by NASA to develop a next-generation spacesuit face significant cost and schedule challenges that will push back its availability to April 2025 at the earliest, according to audit by the agency’s inspector general (IG).
The Exploration Extravehicular Mobility Unit (xEMU) is being designed for astronauts assigned to explore the Moon as well as maintain the International Space Station (ISS).
The IG’s finding alone—on top of uncertainties surrounding the availability of a commercial lunar Human Landing System (HLS) and flight-proven performance of the Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion crew capsule—would preclude a return to the Moon by NASA with human explorers in 2024, the Artemis III mission goal inherited by the Biden White House from the Trump administration.
“Given these anticipated delays in spacesuit development, a lunar landing in late 2024 as NASA currently plans is not feasible,” the 41-page Aug. 10 audit reads. “As spacesuit development continues, evolving and competing requirements from key program stakeholders such as the HLS, ISS and Gateway increase the risk of future cost, schedule and performance issues. Additionally, prior to their use on ISS and Artemis missions, astronauts will require suits for training. However, training needs across the stakeholders, particularly the ISS and HLS programs, do not align with projections of when suit hardware will be available.”
NASA’s lunar-orbiting, human-tended Gateway is to serve as a small space station for astronauts launched aboard the SLS and Orion. At the Gateway, assembly of which is to begin in late 2024, astronauts are to board a commercially provided HLS to be shuttled to the lunar surface and back. Efforts by NASA to fund development by two commercial HLS providers have been slowed by a 2021 congressional appropriation that provided just $850 million of a $3.4 billion request as well as a dispute over a single contract awarded to SpaceX.
In addition, the budget for Gateway includes monies for xEMU development, which was cut to $150 million in 2021 from a planned $209 million, which with technical challenges and workplace restraints imposed in response to the coronavirus pandemic in 2021, combined to slow work on the new garment.
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Earlier this year, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, who took over on May 3, told Congress he would provide a requested cost and timeline strategy for the agency’s deep-space human exploration objectives by year-end.
The audit found NASA has spent $420 million over 14 years to develop a new generation of spacesuits to replace the now 45-year-old garment designed for work by astronauts outside the space shuttle and the ISS. It provides neither the mobility and dexterity needed by astronauts to move about on planetary surfaces nor the flexibility needed to accommodate the range in sizes of male and female astronauts.
The IG forecasts a rise in the xEMU development cost to more than $1 billion in order to provide a currently planned design, verification and testing suit, two qualification suits, one to be demonstrated aboard the ISS as well as two lunar flight suits.
As the xEMU development effort has progressed, NASA in October 2019 issued a Request for Information (RFI) to industry to determine the feasibility of a hybrid contract strategy that was to include a prime contractor for integration and multiple contractors for individual components, according to the audit.
The effort was canceled after 18 months. A new RFI was issued in April 2021, one that gives commercial industry the option of leveraging NASA’s design work or proposing its own. The new action also lifts a requirement that a new spacesuit support both the ISS and lunar exploration, which may not prove cost-effective, according to the audit.
As part of its assessment, the IG made four recommendations, each winning promises of concurrence from Kathy Lueders, NASA’s associate administrator for Human Exploration and Operations:
• By October 2021, complete technical requirements for the new suits before selecting an acquisition strategy.
• By October 2021, develop a spacesuit acquisition strategy that meets the needs of both the ISS and lunar exploration.
• By June 2022, reduce development risks as much as possible when NASA establishes a new date for the Artemis III return to the lunar surface with astronauts. Ensure at least the first two xEMU suits also could be used to address ISS priorities.
• By June 2022, develop an integrated schedule for hardware delivery and training for the Gateway, HLS, ISS and oversight by the agency’s Flight Operations Directorate.
