In-flight Maintainability for an Advanced Extravehicular Mobility Unit: Key to System Availability

A high degree of in-flight availability of an Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) must be assured to allow Extravehicular Activity (EVA) to become a routine operation, to minimize life cycle costs, and to support long duration missions. The ability to maintain an Advanced EMU and other equipment in flight will be of primary importance in achieving these high availability requirements while minimizing onboard spares quantities and resupply costs. This paper presents an analytical assessment of the advantages of in-flight maintainability in providing continued EMU availability for space-based operations by use of modular assemblies and components.