SBIR/STTR Award attributes
Space suit Portable Life Support System (PLSS) is critically important for the successful support of the International Space Station (ISS) and future human space exploration missions for in-space micro-gravity extravehicular activities (EVA) and planetary surface operations. As the design for the new Exploration Extravehicular Mobility Unit (xEMU) is developed, there are obvious gaps in technologies that need to be fulfilled to meet the new exploration requirements. In particular, the currently employed gas sensors are functionally limited and draw significant power.The proposed advanced spacesuit gas sensor addresses the critical need of developing a reliable, compact, rugged and low-power multi-gas sensor as a part of the PLSS for the current and future Extravehicular Mobility Units (EMU). The goal is to develop a moisture tolerant, drop-in replacement for the current sensor. The performance characteristics of the multi-gas sensor will meet the requirements for spacesuit gas detection.In Phase I, a laboratory bench prototype of the multi-gas sensor will be designed, built and characterized over a wide range of gas mixture compositions, total pressures and temperatures including condensing moisture conditions. The engineering challenges of miniaturizing and ruggedizing the instrument will be addressed, and a general design of the Phase II prototype will be outlined. In Phase II, the prototype gas sensor will be built, tested, and delivered to NASA.
