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Maintaining adequate carbon dioxide washout for an advanced extravehicular mobility unit
| Content Provider | NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS) |
|---|---|
| Author | Chullen, Cinda McMillin, Summer Swickrath, Mike Norcross, Jason Conger, Bruce Navarro Sr., Moses Korona, Adam |
| Copyright Year | 2013 |
| Description | Over the past several years, NASA has realized tremendous progress in technology development that is aimed at the production of an Advanced Extravehicular Mobility Unit (AEMU). Of the many functions provided by the spacesuit and portable life support subsystem within the AEMU, delivering breathing gas to the astronaut along with removing the carbon dioxide (CO2) remains one of the most important environmental functions that the AEMU can control. Carbon dioxide washout is the capability of the ventilation flow in the spacesuit helmet to provide low concentrations of CO2 to the crew member to meet breathing requirements. CO2 washout performance is a critical parameter needed to ensure proper and sufficient designs in a spacesuit and in vehicle applications such as sleep stations and hygiene compartments. Human testing to fully evaluate and validate CO2 washout performance is necessary but also expensive due to the levied safety requirements. Moreover, correlation of math models becomes challenging because of human variability and movement. To supplement human CO2 washout testing, a breathing capability will be integrated into a suited manikin test apparatus to provide a safe, lower cost, stable, easily modeled alternative to human testing. Additionally, this configuration provides NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) the capability to evaluate CO2 washout under off-nominal conditions that would otherwise be unsafe for human testing or difficult due to fatigue of a test subject. Testing has been under way in-house at JSC and analysis has been initiated to evaluate whether the technology provides sufficient performance in ensuring that the CO2 is removed sufficiently and the ventilation flow is adequate for maintaining CO2 washout in the AEMU spacesuit helmet of the crew member during an extravehicular activity. This paper will review recent CO2 washout testing and analysis activities, testing planned in-house with a spacesuit simulator, and the associated analytical work along with insights from the medical aspect on the testing. |
| File Size | 2462757 |
| Page Count | 21 |
| File Format | |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://archive.org/details/NASA_NTRS_Archive_20130011556 |
| Archival Resource Key | ark:/13960/t03z38451 |
| Language | English |
| Publisher Date | 2013-01-01 |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Subject Keyword | Man/system Technology And Life Support Fatigue Tests Life Support Systems Carbon Dioxide Ventilation Space Suits Breathing Apparatus Safety Extravehicular Mobility Units Gas Mixtures Ntrs Nasa Technical Reports Server (ntrs) Nasa Technical Reports Server Aerodynamics Aircraft Aerospace Engineering Aerospace Aeronautic Space Science |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
