STS Space Suit Material

This sample of SpaceSuit material includes all the layers of the Space Shuttle EMU (Extra vehicular Mobility Unit) suit.

This suit was used by the Astronauts while on orbit for any Extra vehicular space walking or work outside the Shuttle. The sample was cut from the same Class I Flight Certified Rolls that were used to make the suits for STS-88, the first International Space Station Mission.

The suit layers break down into the following:



The Durable Outer Thermal Micro Meteoroid Garment Layer which provides protection to the Astronaut from the many pebble sized meteoroids that can hit the astronaut while on EVA.

This is the layer that is in direct contact with the vacuum and temperature contrasts of space. The temperatures that this layer has to protect against can vary from +250 degrees to -150 degrees. This layer also protects against the violent Solar Radiation the streams from the sun in the vacuum of space. This layer is made primarily of Beta Cloth (Woven Blend of Nomex and Gore-Tex Fibers with a ripstop network of Kevlar threads) with a Gore-Tex expanded Teflon overlay for tensile strength and abrasion resistance.



The next five layers are thermal insulation lavers (looks like woven tin foil). They are made out of Beta marquisette-reinforced polyamide Mylar film dubbed super Kapton, which come from a blend of polyesters heat-softened into webbing and fused mechanically into a bonded web, having the appearance of loosely woven material on tin foil. This material is perforated to bleed trapped gas and to prevent ballooning and rupturing during depressurization in the Shuttle Air Lock before and after each EVA.



The next layer is the Heavy Duty Liner Layer which is a buffer between the outer layers and the thicker inner layers of the suit.



The next layer is the Pressure Garment Restraint Layer which prevents the suit from puffing up under the 4.3 psi oxygen pressure maintained by the PLSS backpack.

The next layer is one of the most critical to sustaining the life of any human in space.

If this layer were to fail it could mean instant death. The Yellow Pressure Bladder Cloth layer actually retains the oxygen and pressure within the suit from leaking out. Without this layer the oxygen would escape the suit, pressure would drop, and the Astronaut would certainly die.



The Liquid Cooling and Ventilation Garment Layer is the inner most layer. It is actually a zippered jumper that the Astronaut puts on before they don the space suit. The sample is complete with the Glycol cooling tubing which run throughout the LCVG helping to keep the Astronauts cool while on their EVAs by circulating temperature regulated & controlled liquid glycol throughout the suit from the backpack to regulate body temperature.

Under all this the Astronaut wears long underwear which rests against their skin.