Audit Questions Readiness Of NASA Spacesuits

HOUSTON—NASA has overreached in its industry-partnered efforts to develop new astronaut spacesuits, an April 20 audit released by the agency’s inspector general (IG) says.

The spacesuits are being designed for Artemis Moon exploration missions and low-Earth-orbit operations aboard the aging International Space Station (ISS) and its commercial successors.

The current spacesuits—Extravehicular Mobility Units (EMUs) used by astronauts aboard the ISS and space shuttle—have not undergone a major redesign in 20 years. They also carry significant safety risks, some of which have forced NASA to cut short or delay spacewalks aboard the seven-person orbital lab to address risks, the audit said.

In order to move ahead with the development of a new generation of EMUs for lunar exploration and space station operations with cost control and redundancy, NASA in May 2022 awarded contracts worth a combined $3.1 billion to Axiom Space, of Houston, and Collins Aerospace, headquartered in Charlotte, N.C. Under the now-questioned strategy, NASA is to lease the spacesuits rather than own and maintain the garments.

In 2024, NASA and Collins agreed that Collins could not meet NASA’s scheduling. This left Axiom to prepare the new EMUs for a crewed Artemis IV Moon landing in 2028, the ISS deorbit in 2030 and other operations including establishing a lunar base camp.

“Even with efforts to accelerate the schedule, there is little to no schedule margin for the spacesuits to be ready for the Artemis lunar landing mission and a diminishing amount of margin before the ISS’s decommissioning,” the audit says. “While the Exploration Extravehicular Activity Services (xEVAs) contracts include a clause that allows other contractors to submit proposals at any time, NASA officials do not believe that adding another provider at this time would help the Agency achieve its immediate ISS and Artemis goals.”

Bottom line, NASA’s contract approach has “conflicted” with the developmental nature of the challenges associated with human spacesuit development, including technical, financial and schedule risks. The findings note the absence of a commercial spacesuit market from which NASA could competitively draw the talents needed to meet requirements.

“In our judgment, while firm-fixed price and service-based contracts can be viable options for certain NASA procurements, applying that approach to a developmental effort like xEVAS introduced its own set of risks to achieving NASA’s goals,” the IG said.

EMUs include two primary elements. One is a life support system, which provides several hours of battery power, breathable air, carbon dioxide removal, humidity and temperature control, a drink bag, and display and control modules. The second is the multi-element pressure garment, which provides mobility and bodily protection.

As part of the development effort, NASA has planned to demonstrate operations of the new generations of EMUs in Earth orbit, which the IG report suggests won’t happen in a timely fashion.

“NASA’s original schedules to demonstrate the lunar and microgravity spacesuits in 2025 and 2026, respectively, were overly optimistic and ultimately proved unachievable, as evidenced by delays of at least a year and a half for both spacesuits. Based on our analysis, if Axiom experiences design and testing delays in line with the historical average for recent spaceflight programs, the Artemis and ISS demonstrations may not occur until 2031,” the IG said.

NASA has agreed to comply with two audit recommendations by Dec. 31, 2027. But Lori Glaze, the agency’s acting associate administrator of the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, disagreed with the IG’s bottom-line findings.

“NASA will accelerate the development and checkout of the Exploration Extravehicular Activity (xEVA) lunar surface spacesuits and reduce technical risk by integrating on-orbit testing in 2027, either through the Earth orbit Artemis test mission or by leveraging International Space Station-based opportunities,” Glaze wrote in a response to the IG.

NASA’s planned 2027 Artemis III mission is to demonstrate the rendezvous and docking by an Orion astronaut crew with one or two of the lunar Human Landing Systems under development by SpaceX and Blue Origin.

“NASA is actively testing next-generation Exploration Extravehicular Mobility Unit spacesuits for Artemis lunar missions, focusing on mobility, thermal control, and dust tolerance,” Glaze noted.

“Testing includes underwater simulations in the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL), vacuum chamber tests at NASA’s Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, and crewed “human-in-the-loop” evaluations. “This progress underscores continued confidence that the spacesuit development effort is advancing as planned and remains aligned with the schedule required to support the lunar surface mission by 2028,” she added.

The NBL is a large swimming pool equipped with simulated lunar surface features and buoyancy to simulate the Moon’s reduced gravity.

The IG’s recommendations agreed to call on NASA to seek industry input on current xEVA contract requirements in order to support a competitive environment in the field and to develop a plan for establishing standards of interoperability between Artemis lunar vehicles also under industry development and future spacesuits.

The 38-page audit is titled “NASA’s Acquisition of Next-Generation Spacesuit Services.”