Development activities for the European EVA space Suit System (ESSS)

The European Space Agency (ESA) has recently-launched a development program for an autonomous European EVA Space Suit System to become operational for the first manned. Hermes flight in 1999. After the accomplishment of feasibility studies and the establishment of the first technical reference baseline definition, the goal of the ongoing design and development phase is to verify all critical technologies on breadboard-level and to refine and freeze the design of the entire EVA Space Suit System for the main development phase.

The purpose of this paper is to provide information about the development status of the European EVA Space Suit System (ESSS) by introducing the current technical reference baseline and describing the development activities planned until end of 1990.