Collins performs tests of new space station spacesuit

WASHINGTON — Collins Aerospace, one of the companies with a NASA award to develop a new generation of spacesuits, has completed a series of tests of that design in a microgravity environment on an aircraft.
The company, which won an Exploration Extravehicular Activity Services, or xEVAS, contract from NASA in 2022, said last week it completed tests called the Crew Capability Assessment. Those tests examined how well a person wearing the suit could perform tasks that an astronaut on a spacewalk outside the International Space Station might do.
Those tests were conducted onboard an aircraft flying parabolic arcs that allows for 15 to 25 seconds of microgravity at a time. That meant breaking down a specific activity “into its most fundamental pieces” that can be done within that time, said Danny Olivas, a former NASA astronaut who is now chief test astronaut at Collins, in an interview.
Examples of those tasks, he said, include entering and exiting an airlock hatch...

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