The objective of this paper is to detail the development of the DL/H-1 full pressure suit, which was developed by De Leon Technologies LLC, with the assistance of the University of North Dakota.
The DL/H-1 was specifically developed to fulfill the needs for a full pressure suit for private spaceflight in case of decompression or in the need of bailout of the spacecraft.
This work also details the objectives, basis for design, problems encountered by the designers, final development of the DL/H-1 full pressure suit and testing in the high altitude chamber at the School of Aerospace Sciences at the University of North Dakota.
The authors believe that during experimental flights of private spaceflight, orbital or suborbital a full pressure suit will be required to augment safety during all flight phases where in the case of cabin pressure loss, without personal protection, the loss of crew and vehicle could result.
This paper explains the different steps being performed by the authors, who designed and built a flight hardware pressure suit that can meet the physiological and comfort requirements of the tourist suborbital industry and the early commercial private spaceflight community. The suborbital tourist and commercial spaceflight industry have unique problems confronting the pressure suit builder, such as unpressurized comfort, reasonable expense, unique sizing of the general population, decompression complications of persons not fitting a military physiology profile and equipment weight issues.