An Evaluation of Advanced Extravehicular Crew Enclosures

Space Station operations will depend heavily on man's capability to perform extravehicular activities (EVA) routinely and productively. EVA will be available to Station customers as a major resource for pay load servicing operations. It will also serve as a versatile, dependable backup to those external operations that are normally performed by robotic/teleoperator systems.

Advanced EVA suits and gloves are being actively developed by NASA to facilitate tasks requiring high levels of mobility and manual dexterity. These suits operate at pressures approaching that of the Siation interior (1.01 bar). thus eliminating the need for oxygen prebreathing to prevent decompression sickness.

The potential exists to further enhance EVA operations through the use of hard shirtsleeve crew enclosures utilizing anthropomorphic arms and dextrous manipulators. This paper describes enclosure design concepts and presents the results of analyses comparing their performance characteristics and costs.