Space Suits Not Quite as Easy As Expected | Aero-News Network
Aero-News Network
RSS icon RSS feed
podcast icon MP3 podcast
Subscribe Aero-News e-mail Newsletter Subscribe

Airborne Unlimited -- Most Recent Daily Episodes

Episode Date

Airborne-Monday

Airborne-Tuesday

Airborne-Wednesday Airborne-Thursday

Airborne-Friday

Airborne On YouTube

Airborne-Unlimited-12.01.25

AirborneNextGen-
11.18.25

Airborne-Unlimited-11.19.25

Airborne-AffordableFlyers-11.20.25

AirborneUnlimited-11.21.25

LIVE MOSAIC Town Hall (Archived): www.airborne-live.net

Thu, Jun 27, 2024

Space Suits Not Quite as Easy As Expected

The Old EVA Units Hold the Line 45 Years After They Were Designed - But Time's Running Out

Apparently the old NASA set the bar pretty high, now that rumors hint that RTX Collins Aerospace wants out of its contract to design them for the Artemis mission.

Reporters said that the RTX firm was in talks with NASA about dropping the contract, leaving NASA stuck with its now quite vintage Extravehicular Mobility Units spacesuits. That's bad news for the administration, since the 48-year-old equipment is a critical element in pulling off maintenance operations in orbit. The contract walkback comes at a bad time, too, with highly visible suit failures occupying the public eye. In recent weeks, NASA had to cancel a scheduled spacewalk twice, the first time citing discomfort issues, and the rescheduled walk canceled only a few minutes into its quarter-day runtime. The spacewalk ended just as quickly as it began when astronaut Tracy Dyson's suit sprung a leak, occluding the visor. That's not the first time, either. The space suits have been such a running issue that NASA's independent Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel has made it a tradition to call for their upgrade. But, development is evidently tougher than it was fifty years ago.

The contract saw $3.5 billion awarded to Collins and Axiom Space in 2022, intending to provide new space suits for extravehicular activity on the International Space Station and future lunar landings. Collings reportedly got almost $100 million of that chunk, specifically earmarked for ISS suit engineering. If they needed additional funding, they were to get extra portions from Axiom as work demanded. But one delay after another has put the contract on the backburner, leaving Collins wanting to "descope" its tasking of the Exploration Extravehicular Activity Services (xEVAS) contract. That will leave NASA in the lurch as it looks to assign Collins' work to someone else.

Axiom's efforts to make a more robust type of spacesuit fit for dusty lunar adventures may not be going so great either. Originally, the first flight-ready new xEMUs were to be ready by November 2024, but the usual delays through 2019 and beyond left the program all over the map. That's not all that surprising, since the suits were expected to be a part of a program to establish lunar landings by 2024. Across the board, things have gotten messy, as evidenced by a biting audit published in 2021. The Government Accountability Office dug deep into NASA's space suit approach, and criticized it for attempting to fund and procure two distinct, separate, and non-interchangeable space suit designs, noting that NASA had sunk more than a billion dollars into getting a next-gen suit for nothing but some non-functional window dressing. When all's said and done, today's program should have at least had two flight-ready suits, and an ISS demo suit.

FMI: www.nasa.gov

Advertisement

More News

ANN's Daily Aero-Term (11.28.25): Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS)

Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) An unmanned aircraft and its associated elements related to safe operations, which may include control stations (ground, ship, or air based), control>[...]

ANN's Daily Aero-Linx (11.28.25)

Aero Linx: Cactus Fly-In The Classic Airplane Association of Arizona, Inc. (CAAA) was incorporated in Arizona as a not for profit corporation on January 10, 2014. The CAAA roster i>[...]

Airborne 11.21.25: NTSB on UPS Accident, Shutdown Protections, Enstrom Update

Also: UFC Buys Tecnams, Emirates B777-9 Buy, Allegiant Pickets, F-22 And MQ-20 The NTSB's preliminary report on the UPS Flight 2976 crash has focused on the left engine pylon's sep>[...]

Airborne 11.26.25: Bonanza-Baron Fini, Archer v LA NIMBYs, Gogo Loses$$$

Also: Bell 505 on SAF, NYPA Gets Flak For BizAv 'Abuse', FAA Venezuela Caution, Horizon Update Textron Aviation has confirmed it will be ending production of the Beechcraft Bonanza>[...]

Airborne-NextGen 11.25.25: EHang Manned Flt, Army UAVs, Starship V3 Booster Boom

Also: FedEx SAF, Archer Midnight Powertrain Tech, Rocket Lab Record, Perseverance Rover Find EHang has logged a major milestone in the development of its pilotless air taxi, loggin>[...]

blog comments powered by Disqus



Advertisement

Advertisement

Podcasts

Advertisement

© 2007 - 2025 Web Development & Design by Pauli Systems, LC


Debugging Information
ColdFusion Server Enterprise 2023,0,16,330828
Template /ANNTicker.cfm
Time Stamp 02-Dec-25 02:08 AM
Locale English (US)
User Agent Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; ClaudeBot/1.0; +claudebot@anthropic.com)
Remote IP 10.0.20.1
Host Name 10.0.20.1


Execution Time

Total Time Avg Time Count Template
95 ms 95 ms 1 C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/parsed/main.textpost.cfm
95 ms 95 ms 1 CFC[ C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/Application.cfc | onRequest(/ANNTicker.cfm) ] from C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/Application.cfc
52 ms 52 ms 1 C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/model/main/actTextPost.cfm
18 ms 18 ms 1 C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/model/main/qryTextPost.cfm
5 ms 5 ms 1 C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/view/layout/dspBannerAds.cfm
5 ms 5 ms 1 C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/view/layout/dspWidgets.cfm
5 ms 5 ms 1 CFC[ C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/Application.cfc | onRequestStart(/ANNTicker.cfm) ] from C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/Application.cfc
4 ms 4 ms 1 C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/model/main/actWidgets.cfm
2 ms 2 ms 1 C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/fusebox.init.cfm
2 ms 2 ms 1 C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/view/display/dspTextPost.cfm
2 ms 2 ms 1 CFC[ C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/fb551/fusebox5/fuseboxApplication.cfc | compileRequest(main.textpost, CFC: fckeditor.fb551.fusebox5.myFusebox) ] from C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/fb551/fusebox5/fuseboxApplication.cfc
1 ms 1 ms 1 C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/model/main/qryAnnouncements.cfm
1 ms 1 ms 1 C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/model/main/qryNewscats.cfm
1 ms 1 ms 1 C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/view/layout/dspSidebar.cfm
1 ms 1 ms 1 CFC[ C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/Application.cfc | onRequestEnd(/ANNTicker.cfm) ] from C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/Application.cfc
1 ms 1 ms 2 CFC[ C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/fb551/fusebox5/fuseboxApplication.cfc | getCoreToAppRootPath() ] from C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/fb551/fusebox5/fuseboxApplication.cfc
0 ms 0 ms 1 C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/CustomTags/bph/QuerySim.cfm
0 ms 0 ms 1 C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/cftags/sharelinks.cfm
0 ms 0 ms 1 C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/model/comments/actDisqus.cfm
0 ms 0 ms 1 C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/model/main/actFooter.cfm
0 ms 0 ms 1 C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/model/main/qryAudio.cfm
0 ms 0 ms 1 C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/model/main/qryWidVideo.cfm
0 ms 0 ms 1 C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/view/comments/dspDisqus.cfm
0 ms 0 ms 1 C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/view/display/dspAnnouncements.cfm
0 ms 0 ms 1 C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/view/layout/dspNewscats.cfm
0 ms 0 ms 1 C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/view/layout/layAnnNew.cfm
0 ms 0 ms 1 C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/view/layout/widgets/widget_234BannerZone.cfm
0 ms 0 ms 1 C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/view/layout/widgets/widget_admin.cfm
0 ms 0 ms 1 C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/view/layout/widgets/widget_flashAd.cfm
0 ms 0 ms 1 C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/view/layout/widgets/widget_podcasts.cfm
0 ms 0 ms 1 C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/view/layout/widgets/widget_search.cfm
0 ms 0 ms 1 C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/view/layout/widgets/widget_today.cfm
0 ms 0 ms 1 C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/view/layout/widgets/widget_topvideos.cfm
0 ms 0 ms 1 CFC[ C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/Application.cfc | onSessionStart() ] from C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/Application.cfc
0 ms 0 ms 13 CFC[ C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/components/utils.cfc | RandomNumber() ] from C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/components/utils.cfc
0 ms 0 ms 1 CFC[ C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/components/utils.cfc | tagstripper(<h2><u><strong>The Old EVA Units Hold the Line 45 Years After They Were Designed - But Time's Running Out</strong></u></h2>

Apparently the old NASA set the bar pretty high, now that rumors hint that RTX Collins Aerospace wants out of its contract to design them for the Artemis mission. The RTX firm is in talks with NASA about dropping the Exploration Extravehicular Activity Services (xEVAS) contract, leaving NASA stuck with its now quite vintage Extravehicular Mobility Units spacesuits. The&nbsp;contract saw $3.5 billion awarded to Collins and Axiom Space in 2022, intending to provide two&nbsp;new space suit designs. One would have been a general use replacement for the current astronaut suit, providing mobility and protection in space. The other was to be a much more robust, involved unit to walk on the Moon once again, demanding a whole host of improvements.&nbsp;

) ] from C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/components/utils.cfc
0 ms 0 ms 1 CFC[ C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/fb551/fusebox5/fuseboxAction.cfc | getAccess() ] from C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/fb551/fusebox5/fuseboxAction.cfc
0 ms 0 ms 1 CFC[ C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/fb551/fusebox5/fuseboxApplication.cfc | expandFuseboxPath(parsed/) ] from C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/fb551/fusebox5/fuseboxApplication.cfc
0 ms 0 ms 1 CFC[ C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/fb551/fusebox5/fuseboxApplication.cfc | getVersion() ] from C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/fb551/fusebox5/fuseboxApplication.cfc
0 ms 0 ms 1 CFC[ C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/fb551/fusebox5/fuseboxEvent.cfc | init([complex value], [complex value], CFC: fckeditor.fb551.fusebox5.myFusebox) ] from C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/fb551/fusebox5/fuseboxEvent.cfc
0 ms 0 ms 2 CFC[ C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/fb551/fusebox5/myFusebox.cfc | getMyself() ] from C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/fb551/fusebox5/myFusebox.cfc
0 ms 0 ms 1 CFC[ C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/fb551/fusebox5/myFusebox.cfc | getSelf() ] from C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/fb551/fusebox5/myFusebox.cfc
0 ms 0 ms 1 CFC[ C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/fb551/fusebox5/myFusebox.cfc | init(fusebox, [complex value], [complex value]) ] from C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/fb551/fusebox5/myFusebox.cfc
0 ms 0 ms 1 CFC[ C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/fb551/fusebox5/myFusebox.cfc | trace(Fusebox, Request completed) ] from C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/fb551/fusebox5/myFusebox.cfc
4 ms  STARTUP, PARSING, COMPILING, LOADING, & SHUTDOWN
105 ms  TOTAL EXECUTION TIME
red = over 250 ms average execution time


SQL Queries

post (Datasource=AeroNews, Time=18ms, Records=1) in C:\inetpub\wwwroot\clients\aero-news.net\model\main\qryTextPost.cfm @ 02:08:37.037
SELECT
	cb.ContentBlockID as id,
	cb.ContentBlockName as title,
	cb.Display,
	ct.DisplayTemplate,
	cb.HTMLContent as description,
	cb.ForumCode,
	cb.Icon,
	convert(varchar(20), cb.Display, 111) AS GroupDate,
	t.TeaserText as teaser,
	cb.SortOrder
FROM
	vwContentBlock cb INNER JOIN ContentType ct
	ON cb.ContentTypeCode = ct.ContentTypeCode
	LEFT OUTER JOIN Teaser t
	ON cb.ContentBlockID = t.ContentBlockID AND t.TeaserType <> 'L'
WHERE
	cb.ContentBlockID = ?
	AND Status IN ('60','80') AND (Display <{ts '2025-12-02 02:08:37'} OR Display IS NULL)
Query Parameter Value(s) -
Parameter #1(CF_SQL_varchar) = 78447FF6-0D81-433A-82C7-B6BBFFF929C6

GetAnnouncements (Datasource=AeroNews, Time=0ms, Records=1, Cached Query) in C:\inetpub\wwwroot\clients\aero-news.net\model\main\qryAnnouncements.cfm @ 02:08:37.037
SELECT HTMLContent
FROM ContentBlockLive
WHERE ContentBlockKey = 'ANNOUNCE' 
	AND Status = 60 
	AND ((Display <{ts '2025-12-02 02:00:00'} OR Display IS NULL) 
	AND (Expire > {ts '2025-12-02 02:00:00'} OR Expire IS NULL))
qryAudio (Datasource=AeroNews, Time=0ms, Records=0, Cached Query) in C:\inetpub\wwwroot\clients\aero-news.net\model\main\qryAudio.cfm @ 02:08:37.037
SELECT NewID() as id,
	CAST(episodesid AS VARCHAR(38)) as myid,
	title,
	CAST(subtitle  AS Varchar(800)) as teaser, 
	CAST(summary AS Varchar(2000)) as description,
	ApprovedDate as published,
	episodefile as filelocation, 
	podcastsid as categoryid,
	CAST('audio' AS char(8)) as mytype,
	ApprovedDate as GroupDate,
	SPACE(2) AS previewimage,
	0 AS sortorder
FROM episodes
	WHERE Approved = 1 
		
	AND ApprovedDate <{ts '2025-12-02 02:00:00'} ANd ApprovedDate > {ts '2025-11-28 02:00:00'} 

Order By published DESC, sortorder DESC
qryWidVideo (Datasource=AeroNews, Time=0ms, Records=3, Cached Query) in C:\inetpub\wwwroot\clients\aero-news.net\model\main\qryWidVideo.cfm @ 02:08:37.037
SELECT TOP 3
videoId as id, 
	convert(varchar(38), videoId) as myid, 
	title, 
	CAST(description AS Varchar(2000)) as description, 
	Cast(teaser AS Varchar(800))as teaser,
	published,
	filelocation, 
	categoryid,
	CAST('video' AS char(8)) as mytype,
	published as GroupDate,
	previewimage,
	0 AS sortorder
	
FROM Videos
WHERE active = 1 AND approved = 1 AND published <{ts '2025-12-02 02:00:00'} 
ORDER BY published DESC
widgetsorted (Datasource=, Time=3ms, Records=6) in C:\inetpub\wwwroot\clients\aero-news.net\model\main\actWidgets.cfm @ 02:08:37.037
SELECT *
	FROM qryWidgets
	WHERE wname IN('flashAd','today','search','podcasts','topvideos','adsection234')
	ORDER By sortorder
NewsCategories (Datasource=AeroNews, Time=0ms, Records=7, Cached Query) in C:\inetpub\wwwroot\clients\aero-news.net\model\main\qryNewscats.cfm @ 02:08:37.037
SELECT 
			ContentTypeName, ContentTypeCode
		FROM ContentType 
		WHERE CategoryCode = 'NEWS' AND CONTENTTYPECODE <> 'ATRVNW'
		ORDER BY ContentTypeName
NewsCategories2 (Datasource=AeroNews, Time=0ms, Records=8, Cached Query) in C:\inetpub\wwwroot\clients\aero-news.net\model\main\qryNewscats.cfm @ 02:08:37.037
SELECT 
			ContentTypeName, ContentTypeCode
		FROM ContentType 
		WHERE CategoryCode = 'NEWS'
		ORDER BY ContentTypeName


Scope Variables

CGI Variables:
AUTH_PASSWORD=
AUTH_TYPE=
AUTH_USER=
CERT_COOKIE=
CERT_FLAGS=
CERT_ISSUER=
CERT_KEYSIZE=
CERT_SECRETKEYSIZE=
CERT_SERIALNUMBER=
CERT_SERVER_ISSUER=
CERT_SERVER_SUBJECT=
CERT_SUBJECT=
CF_TEMPLATE_PATH=C:\inetpub\wwwroot\clients\aero-news.net\AnnTicker.cfm
CONTENT_LENGTH=0
CONTENT_TYPE=
CONTEXT_PATH=
GATEWAY_INTERFACE=CGI/1.1
HTTPS=off
HTTPS_KEYSIZE=
HTTPS_SECRETKEYSIZE=
HTTPS_SERVER_ISSUER=
HTTPS_SERVER_SUBJECT=
HTTP_ACCEPT=*/*
HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING=gzip, br, zstd, deflate
HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE=
HTTP_CONNECTION=Keep-Alive
HTTP_COOKIE=
HTTP_HOST=www.aero-news.net
HTTP_REFERER=
HTTP_URL=/ANNTicker.cfm?do=main.textpost&id=78447FF6-0D81-433A-82C7-B6BBFFF929C6
HTTP_USER_AGENT=Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; ClaudeBot/1.0; +claudebot@anthropic.com)
LOCAL_ADDR=10.0.20.10
PATH_INFO=
PATH_TRANSLATED=C:\inetpub\wwwroot\clients\aero-news.net\AnnTicker.cfm
QUERY_STRING=do=main.textpost&id=78447FF6-0D81-433A-82C7-B6BBFFF929C6
REMOTE_ADDR=10.0.20.1
REMOTE_HOST=10.0.20.1
REMOTE_USER=
REQUEST_METHOD=GET
SCRIPT_NAME=/ANNTicker.cfm
SERVER_NAME=www.aero-news.net
SERVER_PORT=80
SERVER_PORT_SECURE=0
SERVER_PROTOCOL=HTTP/1.1
SERVER_SOFTWARE=Microsoft-IIS/10.0
WEB_SERVER_API=
Cookie Variables:
CFID=5121986
CFTOKEN=f32c71baf20d51b3-AAE78F5C-C505-40C9-6088FC973EA1A3A1
Session Variables:
sessionid=C4E7E40D83468EA0EEC1E4774E22DB42.cfusion
urltoken=CFID=5121986&CFTOKEN=f32c71baf20d51b3-AAE78F5C-C505-40C9-6088FC973EA1A3A1&jsessionid=C4E7E40D83468EA0EEC1E4774E22DB42.cfusion
URL Parameters:
do=main.textpost
id=78447FF6-0D81-433A-82C7-B6BBFFF929C6
Debug Rendering Time: 36 ms