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The space exploration enterprise that will lead to human exploration on Mars requires pressure suit system capabilities and characteristics that change significantly over time and between different missions and mission phases. These capabilities must be provided within tight budget constraints and severely limited launch mass and volume, and at a pace that supports NASA's over-all exploration timeline. As a result, it has not been obvious whether the use of a single pressure suit system (like Apollo) or combinations of multiple pressure suit designs (like Shuttle) will offer the best balance among life cycle cost, risk, and performance. Because the answer to this question is pivotal for the effective development of pressure suit system technologies that will met NASA's needs, ILC and Hamilton Sundstrand engineers have collaborated in an independent study to identify and evaluate the alternatives.

An Infrared (IR) carbon dioxide (CO2) transducer has been designed, developed, and produced for space applications. This transducer provides measurement of partial pressure of CO2 in life support applications, including the Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU), Space Shuttle Orbiter and Spacehab. The electrochemical sensor presently used for these applications has a slow response time and has reliability concerns due to the electrolyte. The new microprocessor based unit has a fast response time and can be tailored to other space applications.

This paper summarizes the results of our continued testing of a radio based, non-Global Positioning System (GPS) navigation and communications system. The system has been integrated with two mobile computers, a robot and four work stations. It demonstrated crewmember interfaces for acquiring, storing and transmitting data from a space suit life support system simulation, test subject Electrocardiogram (ECG) and other biomedical data. This is an extension of the functions which were tested last year during the NASA Desert Research and Technology Studies (RATS) 2006 activities at both Johnson Space Center in Houston Texas and at Meteor Crater near Flagstaff Arizona. We added considerable complexity to the tests. The tests were conducted on an accurate series of geo-referenced paths at the El Toro Marine Air Station, a closed air field.