How To Dress For Space

Before the crew launches on the Artemis II mission to the Moon, they’ll suit up in a bright orange spacesuit called the Orion Crew Survival System (OCSS). This spacesuit, worn inside NASA’s Orion spacecraft, helps protect the astronauts on launch day, in emergency situations, throughout high-risk parts of missions near the Moon, and during the high-speed return to Earth. Managed by a team in the OCSS Lab at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, each suit is tailored to the crew member’s anatomy and includes systems for air, food, water, and waste management. In the event of an emergency, the OCSS suits are engineered to sustain life for up to six days. During Artemis II, the astronauts will practice donning and doffing the suit in weightlessness, experience its pressurized environment, and confirm its performance for long-duration survival. This is how the Artemis II crew will dress for space. Credit: NASA Writer: Erika Peters Editor: Phil Sexton Producers: Rad Sinyak, Erika Peters Join NASA as we go forward to the Moon and on to Mars -- discover the latest on Earth, the Solar System and beyond with a weekly update in your inbox. Subscribe at: https://www.nasa.gov/subscribe

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The Artemis II mission will be a ten day mission to the Moon and back. The purpose of this mission is primarily to test out the Orion spacecraft for the future missions, where we will go and land on the lunar surface. One of the fun things that we will actually be doing is donning the suits while we're in microgravity, and actually experiencing them in the true pressurized, weightless environment in the vehicle. I'm Dustin Gohmert, I'm the Orion Crew Survival System manager at NASA's Johnson Space Center. And this is how you dress for space.

The team here at Johnson Space Center and the Orion Crew Survival Systems Lab does pretty much everything involved with processing the suits, designing the suits, qualifying them for the Orion mission, the Orion Crew Survival System, O, C, S, S, or OCSS is the suit designed to keep the crew safe in an atmosphere personal atmosphere around their body for launch and landing, but also for long duration events in case there was an emergency on the way to the Moon. There's several unique parameters that have to be designed in such a suit, such as how much pressure it can hold, the duration it can hold, the pressure for the amount of leakage that comes out of the suit. All the physiological functions. Each suit that the crew wears is custom built for their unique anatomy. It’s your personal environment.

It's a personal pressure vessel. It's in the simplest terms, a body shaped balloon. Each fit check, the crew gets practice donning and doffing the suit to understand how to rapidly get the suit on in the event of an emergency. The suit is put on very much like any other garment. Instead of the zipper being in the front, it's in the back though the pants are put on very much just like any pair of pants.

And then you would climb into the suit and stand up. Your head will come through the neck ring and the suit is effectively donned. Generally, you get a buddy to help you zip it up from behind, and then you can don your gloves and your helmet, and at that point you're effectively sealed inside the suit. You might think you recognize the suit that we're designing from the heritage and the shuttle program. There is very much similarities between the suit and that flown in the shuttle, the advanced crew escape suit.

The suit, however, is very specifically designed for its unique mission. And this unique mission is long duration survival in the space capsule environment. In this context, if you're circling the moon or in transit to the Moon and have to do a spin around to come back, it could take up to six days to return home. In this case, the suit has to be designed perfect to the occupant wearing it. The person is provided with all the necessities to support life for that duration, including food, drink, air and bodily waste management as well.

The orange layer is actually Nomex, and the Nomex is designed to keep the crew safe in case of a contingency heat or flashover event. The orange in particular is chosen because the capsule lands at sea, so international orange is very, very visible for maritime recovery. The blue V that runs down the chest of the suit is part of the torso harness that's sewn underneath the cover layer. Each of those is designed for reflectivity. Should crew come in, shine a light on them instantly, they know where to grab and how to save the crew.

Working here on these suits is an absolute privilege. The weight of it is also incredible, and knowing the ultimate responsibility that you and the team share, that crew is the number one priority. It's kind of overwhelming in a sense. It's exciting in a sense. It's awe inspiring in every possible way.

I have a feeling when the day comes, when the launch happens, when the crew is up there and everything's safe, there's going to be a massive sigh, a massive sense of just joy that we all feel. We're all looking forward to it. It's going to be amazing.

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