Question: How long does it take to make a space suit

Vinita Marwaha answered on 19 Jun 2016:

A spacesuit is essentially a small anthropomorphic spacecraft. Turning a human into this requires thousands of hours of work. The Gravity Loading Countermeasure Skinsuit Project that I’ve worked on has taken almost 10 years of research and development in order to finally be able to be launched and used on the ISS, with a core team currently of around 20 people. Initial design and performance evaluations of the suit were conducted in a series of ground-based studies, including sleep studies. Parabolic flights were also carried out to test the fit of the suit prior to the space debut of the suit on the ISS last year. The suit, which was designed to be worn inside the ISS, was evaluated onboard the station by Danish ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen last September, during which assessments were made into its ability to counteract spinal elongation, prevent lower back pain and measure it’s loading effectiveness.