Bioastronautics is the study associated with the support of life in space, including the design of payloads, space habitats, and life support systems. IIAS works with Final Frontier Design to test and evaluate commercial spacesuits and their operability within analog environments. IIAS conducts citizen-science bioastronautics research including evaluations of Final Frontier Design spacesuits and associated technologies developed within the program. IIAS students work exclusively with Integrated Spaceflight Services to evaluate Final Frontier IVA Spacesuits through a multi-year research and evaluation program to evaluate spacesuit functionality, operational envelope, prototype suit/seat interface, seat ingress and egress operations, interface with biometric monitoring and communications systems, and CO2 washout tests. IIAS studies human performance in space suits through its research affiliates, Project PoSSUM (for IVA suits) and Project OTTER (for EVA suits).
What is Bioastronautics?
About Final Frontier Design
Final Frontier Design (FFD) was founded in 2010 in Brooklyn, NY with the intent to “craft affordable yet highly capable space suits for a burgeoning commercial space flight industry.” In 2015, Final Frontier Design won a Space Act agreement with NASA and is now developing broader spacesuit technologies. In 2019, FFD developed a prototype commercial Extra-Vehicular Activity (EVA) space suit which can be donned and pressurized for orbital or surface EVA. It is now in the process of certification according to the NASA flight certification standards.
Since 2015, Integrated Spaceflight Services has partnered with Final Frontier Design to test, evaluate, and validate the space siut prototyles in analog environments. IIAS, through Project PoSSUM and Project OTTER, continues to engage citizen-scientists with the technology maturation process of FFD space suits.
IVA Space Suit
EVA Space Suit
IVA Space Suit Test and Evaluation
Microgravity and High-G Space Suit Evaluation
The IIAS Spacesuit Evaluation Program has been co-developed by Project PoSSUM, Integrated Spaceflight Services, Final Frontier Design, the National Research Council, the Southern Aeromedical Institute, and Survival Systems USA. We publish citizen-science and publicly-funded research on microgravity, high-altitude, high-G, and post-landing operations of Intra-Vehicular Activity (IVA) spacesuits.
Post-Landing Human Performance Research
IIAS and Survival Systems USA have jointly developed a program that provides analog environments to the landing and post-landing phase of human space missions, coupled with an educational program designed exclusively for IIAS graduates. IIAS graduates also have the unique opportunity to participate in a wide variety of lunar and Mars analog immersive science expeditions in partnership with Science in the Wild. Here, graduates investigate the actual science that would be performed on the Moon or on Mars, the tools that might be needed to conduct the science, and how those tools would be used by astronauts within an EVA spacesuit.
Human Factors Research
IIAS is involved in a variety of research, including aerospace physiology and human performance research involving PoSSUM Scientist-Astronaut Candidates. These tests are designed to study the diversity of physiological and psychological responses to spaceflight analog conditions.
Hypobaric Hypoxia Research
Continuing High-Altitude Chamber testing of IVA space suits evaluates the ability of suit occupant to seal and pressurize in a hypoxic environment as well as the suit functionality in high-altitude environment.
EVA Space Suit Test and Evaluation
IIAS studnets take lessons-learned from operational space medicine and planetary field geology research activities and re-create the tools and procedures at our gravity-offset laboratory located at the Canadian Space Agency headquarters in Montreal. Here, EVA space suit prototypes may be evaluated in a controlled environment. IIAS’s gravity-offset system is a two-axis system that may simulate any gravity level between 1-0G including lunar and Martian gravity levels.
About the FFD EVA Space Suit
Final Frontier Design (FFD) was founded in 2010 in Brooklyn, NY with the intent to “craft affordable yet highly capable space suits for a burgeoning commercial space flight industry.” In 2015, Final Frontier Design won a Space Act agreement with NASA and is now developing broader spacesuit technologies. In 2019, FFD developed a prototype commercial Extra-Vehicular Activity (EVA) space suit which can be donned and pressurized for orbital or surface EVA. It is now in the process of certification according to the NASA flight certification standards. Project PoSSUM continues to work with FFD by engaging citizen-scientists with the technology maturation process of FFD space suits.
About the IIAS Gravity Offset Laboratory
Together with Kansas State University, IIAS has developed a gravity-offset laboratory at the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) headquarters in Montreal, Quebec. The IIAS system is a two-axis system that is actively controlled like NASA’s ARGOS system. It combines a hoist with active force control for vertical gravity-offset (Kansas State’s MoRGS unit developed by Timothy Mourlam) and a ‘friction-less’ air-bearing axis for horizontal motion as part of a larger structure developed by IIAS’s engineering team. The system is designed to be used in terrestrial environments with human test subjects for the simulation of partial gravity or zero gravity environments. Together with the CSA, IIAS students evaluate EVA space suit prototypes in Martian, Lunar, and zero-g conditions while being harnessed to the hoist. The laboratory uses CSA’s lunar test yard for surface EVA simulations and the IIAS Quest Airlock mock-up to support orbital (microgravity) simulation.
Lunar-Gravity EVA Space Suit Evaluation
2019 Phase-One Test Objectives:
1) Walking under lunar gravity,
2) geological tool evaluations in lunar gravity (hammer, shovel, soil sampler, rock hardness tool),
3) remote drone operations in lunar gravity,
4) LiDAR system evaluation in lunar gravity.
Microgravity EVA Space Suit Evaluation
2019 Phase-One Test Objectives:
1) Fluid line connection in microgravity
2) electrical line connection in microgravity,
3) drill use in microgravity.
Surface EVA Tool Development
IIAS students concentrate on design considerations for EVA systems and tools for conducting planetary field geology. The members are then able to consider the constraints placed by human factors, the EVA environment, and science tasks upon the design and implementation of EVA suits, tools, and procedures for effective and efficient field science operations on planetary surfaces. These tools and procedures are later evaluated in a gravity-offset laboratory.
About the IIAS Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory
Neutral Buoancy EVA Space Suit Evaluation
IIAS students learn the fundamentals of space suit evaluation in underwater analog environments as part of EVA 105 ‘Fundamentals of Underwater Analog EVA’ in the controlled environment of IIAS’s Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory in Groton, CT.