ORLANDO, Fla. — SpaceX has unveiled long-awaited spacesuits intended for spacewalks that will first be used on an upcoming private spaceflight.

佛羅裡達州奧蘭多——SpaceX 推出了人們期待已久的太空行走宇航服，該太空服將首先用於即將到來的私人太空飛行。

The company revealed the design of the extravehicular activity (EVA) suit on its website and social media May 4. The suit is based on the current pressure suits worn by astronauts on Crew Dragon flights but, unlike those suits, is intended for use on spacewalks.

該公司於5 月4 日在其網站和社交媒體上公佈了艙外活動(EVA) 套裝的設計。 ，該套裝旨在用於太空行走。

The suit upgrades include new joint designs that remain soft until pressurized while maintaining mobility, improved thermal management, and an upgraded helmet with an exterior coating that acts like a sun visor along with a camera and heads-up display that provides information on the status of the suit during the spacewalk. Umbilicals provide life support for the suits.

防護服的升級包括新的關節設計，在加壓之前保持柔軟，同時保持機動性，改進的熱管理，以及帶有外部塗層的升級頭盔，其作用類似於遮陽板，並配有攝像頭和平視顯示器，可提供有關狀態資訊的資訊。臍帶纜為太空衣提供生命維持。

The suits will first be worn on the Polaris Dawn mission, a Crew Dragon private spaceflight that is part of the Polaris program of missions backed by billionaire Jared Isaacman. He will fly on that mission with Kidd Poteet, Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon. All four will wear the suits because Crew Dragon, lacking an airlock, will have to be depressurized for the spacewalk.

這些太空衣將首先在北極星黎明任務中穿著，這是載人龍飛船的私人太空飛行，是億萬富翁賈里德·艾薩克曼支持的北極星任務計劃的一部分。他將與基德·波蒂特、莎拉·吉利斯和安娜·梅農一起執行這項任務。所有四人都將穿著這套太空服，因為載人龍飛船沒有氣閘，在太空中行走時必須減壓。

Gillis said in a discussion hosted by SpaceX on social media May 4 that the spacewalk would last about two hours, including the time depressurizing the cabin at the start and repressurizing it at the end. Two people will exit the capsule, using a device called a “skywalker” at the front hatch with handholds and interfaces to assist them in going through the hatch.

吉利斯在 5 月 4 日 SpaceX 在社群媒體上主持的討論中表示，太空行走將持續約兩個小時，包括開始時給艙室減壓和結束時重新加壓的時間。兩個人將離開太空艙，使用前艙口處名為“天行者”的設備，該設備帶有手柄和接口，可幫助他們穿過艙口。

The spacewalkers will go through a “test matrix” to collect data on the performance of the EVA suits. “This is looking at mobility, movement in this microgravity environment, how the suit is performing,” she said. “There’s a whole series of test questions that will be stepped through for the time outside the spacecraft.”

太空行走者將透過「測試矩陣」來收集有關 EVA 服性能的數據。 「這是在考慮微重力環境下的機動性、運動以及太空衣的性能，」她說。 “在太空船外的時間裡，我們將逐步完成一系列的測試問題。”

The suits have been extensively tested on the ground, including a test where the entire Crew Dragon capsule was placed in a vacuum chamber and the cabin depressurized with four “spacesuit simulators” inside. “That all worked as expected,” said Stu Keech, vice president of Dragon at SpaceX. “That’s equivalent to the uncrewed Demo-1 flight” of Crew Dragon in 2019.

這些太空衣已經在地面上進行了廣泛的測試，其中包括將整個載人龍飛船太空艙放置在真空室中並在艙內減壓並在內部放置四個「太空衣模擬器」的測試。 「一切都按預期進行，」SpaceX Dragon 副總裁 Stuart Keech 說。 「這相當於 2019 年 Crew Dragon 的無人 Demo-1 飛行」。

The spacewalk also required modifications to Dragon itself, such as a repressuization system to restore cabin pressure after the spacewalk and changing some materials based on their outgassing properties. “The interior is going to look a little different when you see pictures of us sitting in the spacecraft,” Gillis said.

太空行走也需要對龍飛船本身進行改造，例如在太空行走後恢復艙內壓力的再加壓系統，以及根據其排氣特性改變一些材料。 「當你看到我們坐在飛船裡的照片時，內部看起來會有點不同，」吉利斯說。

The suits will also be used as the pressure suits worn during launch and reentry on typical Crew Dragon missions. SpaceX plans to eventually combine the two suits into a single one, with some changes already incorporated into pressure suits starting with the Crew-6 mission based on what the company learned developing the EVA suits.

該套裝還將用作典型載人龍飛船任務中發射和重返大氣層時穿著的壓力套裝。 SpaceX 計畫最終將這兩套太空衣合而為一，從 Crew-6 任務開始，根據該公司在開發 EVA 太空衣時所學到的知識，一些改變已經融入壓力太空衣中。

“The goal of this suit is to be our first design of the EVA suit, and then, just like all over SpaceX products, we’re going to continue through block upgrades as we go forward and learn,” Keech said.

「這款套裝的目標是成為我們的第一個 EVA 套裝設計，然後，就像所有 SpaceX 產品一樣，我們將在前進和學習的過程中繼續進行整體升級，」基奇說。

Polaris Dawn plans

The spacewalk is a key part of the upcoming Polaris Dawn mission, and development of the spacesuits had been a pacing factor for that flight, once planned for late 2022 but delayed several times since then.

北極星黎明計畫太空行走是即將到來的北極星黎明任務的關鍵部分，太空衣的開發一直是該次飛行的一個節奏因素，該飛行曾計劃於 2022 年底進行，但此後多次推遲。

Polaris Dawn is now scheduled for early summer, and SpaceX expressed confidence that the schedule would hold. “Polaris Dawn is the next major operation for the Dragon program,” Keech said. “Right now the whole team is driving towards a launch date in early summer of this year.”

北極星黎明現定於夏初舉行，SpaceX 表示有信心維持這項時間表。 「北極星黎明號是龍計畫的下一個主要行動，」基奇說。 “目前整個團隊正在努力爭取今年初夏的發布日期。”

The Falcon 9 launching the Polaris Dawn mission will place the Crew Dragon spacecraft into an elliptical orbit of 190 by 1,200 kilometers, Menon said. The spacecraft will then raise its apogee to 1,400 kilometers, the highest altitude for a crewed mission since the Apollo 17 crewed mission in 1972.

梅農表示，獵鷹 9 號發射的「北極星黎明」任務將把載人龍飛船送入 190 x 1,200 公里的橢圓軌道。隨後，太空船將把遠地點提升至 1,400 公里，這是自 1972 年阿波羅 17 號載人任務以來載人任務的最高高度。

Dragon will remain at that apogee for about seven orbits, collecting data on the increased radiation environment, before lowering to 700 kilometers. That is the altitude at which the mission will conduct the EVA. The mission will remain in orbit for five days, Isaacman said, conducting experiments and testing the ability of the spacecraft to communicate through SpaceX’s Starlink constellation.

「龍號」將在該最高點停留約 7 個軌道，收集有關增加的輻射環境的數據，然後降低到 700 公里。這是任務執行 EVA 的高度。艾薩克曼表示，這項任務將在軌道上停留五天，進行實驗並測試太空船透過 SpaceX 星鏈星座進行通訊的能力。

The flight profile, with the higher altitude and the spacewalk, brings with it new risks. Keech said SpaceX had evaluated both the radiation and micrometeroid/orbital debris impact risk for this flight profile. “The Polaris Dawn mission, for both of those, will be within the risk that we accept for a six-month ISS mission,” he said. “We want to make sure that we’re not unnecessarily taking risks, but you do have to expand the envelope and do it methodically.”

更高的飛行高度和太空行走的飛行剖面帶來了新的風險。基奇表示，SpaceX 已經評估了這次飛行剖面的輻射和微流星體/軌道碎片撞擊風險。 「對於這兩個任務來說，北極星黎明任務將處於我們接受為期六個月的國際太空站任務的風險範圍內，」他說。 “我們希望確保我們不會冒不必要的風險，但你確實必須擴大範圍並有條不紊地進行。”

“We certainly are briefed constantly on where the differences are between our mission and a normal profile,” Isaacman said, “and feel really comfortable they’ve been addressed.”

艾薩克曼說：“我們當然會不斷了解我們的使命與正常形象之間的差異，並且對這些問題得到解決感到非常滿意。”