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| Boeing Blue, New Space Suit Design for Starliner Astronauts |
Florida - Boeing shows a new spacesuit design for Starliner astronauts at NASA's Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida, on June 15, 2022. A new spacesuit called "Boeing Blue" was reproduced for exhibition before an actual sample of the Dover ILC design was created.
Boeing had previously selected another spacesuit manufacturer, the David Clark Company, to provide pressure suits for astronauts launching and landing on the CST-100 Starliner capsule. However, late last month Boeing unexpectedly chose ILC Dover to design the spacesuit.
Quoted from Space.com, Boing said “We introduced the new suit during an operational mission and are pleased to see the market open. This allows more options for Boeing as well as our government and commercial customers."
ILC Dover has a long history as a provider of extravehicular activity (EVA) spacesuits for NASA. The company makes the clothing worn by Apollo astronauts on the moon and provides soft goods for the clothing that International Space Station crew members still wear as they travel in space beyond the US segment of the orbiting outpost.
ILC Dover and its partners have also recently been selected for a NASA contract to provide the next generation of spacesuits for wear in low Earth orbit and on the moon. With the rise of the commercial aerospace industry, ILC Dover took the initiative to develop its own ascent and entry suit (AES) as a ready-to-use solution.
ILC's in-house fashion designer was able to meet Boeing's needs and most importantly find materials that match Boeing Blue. “The main difference is basically the fireproof finish, as you will see in the replicas our suits are made of,” said Joey Sung, senior design engineer for ILC Dover.
The new spacesuit was introduced after Boeing began flying astronauts on contracted NASA missions to and from the International Space Station in 2023. While no astronauts have launched with the Starliner yet, an anthropometric test kit (instrumental mannequin) called the "Rosie the Rocketeer" has tested wearing this suit for a trial mission.
There are no details about the new spacesuit yet, but Boeing says the new Starliner spacesuit has added redundancy and flexibility for crew accommodation to low-Earth orbit. "Despite the notable differences in visual effects, the Starliner suits we've seen so far, there aren't any major topological differences," said Adam Savage, host of Discovery Channel's "Mythbusters".