updates
SpaceX EVA suit for Polaris Dawn
On May 4, 2024, SpaceX described a new extravehicular suit for Polaris Dawn, targeted for no earlier than summer 2024, and said all four crew would be exposed to vacuum together.
Topics: space-civilization
This page is an original Muskularity summary. It does not republish SpaceX’s full post. Figures are the company’s statements on the cited date unless another primary link is named.
Summary
SpaceX tied the new suit to Polaris Dawn, the first of up to three Polaris missions announced in 2022. The flight was targeted for no earlier than summer 2024 and would last five days. The spacewalk would be SpaceX’s first from Dragon and, the company said, the first commercial astronaut spacewalk. Because Dragon has no separate airlock in this plan, all four crew would be in vacuum at once.
The suit is described as an evolution of the intravehicular suit already worn in Dragon: new materials and joints for movement while pressurized, a 3D-printed helmet, a visor to cut glare, and a heads-up display plus camera for pressure, temperature, and humidity. Extra seals and valves are the redundancy case. SpaceX called the pattern scalable to different bodies. The Moon-base and Mars-city close is a design ambition, not a suit already qualified for those places.
Key facts
| Fact | Label |
|---|---|
| Polaris Dawn targeted no earlier than summer 2024, five days | Company plan as of May 4, 2024 |
| First SpaceX EVA, and first time four crew would be in vacuum together | Company mission objective |
| Suit adds joints, a display of suit pressure, temperature, and humidity, and extra seals | Company hardware description |
Why it matters
The Polaris announcement set the spacewalk as a goal. This post is the hardware description. A suit “whose ultimate destiny” is the Moon and Mars is a company line; the mission in front of it was a low-Earth-orbit demonstration.
On this site
Sources
- SpaceX update, May 4, 2024 — Grade A, company post
- Polaris Program site linked from the post — Grade A, program page
- SpaceX human spaceflight page — Grade A, company page
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