Which set of spacesuits independently developed by China was used in the extravehicular activities of Shenzhou VII and Tiangong Space Station?

Tian Fei spacesuit is an extravehicular spacesuit designed by China for the extravehicular activities of manned spaceflight project. On September 27th, 2008, during the extravehicular activity of Shenzhou VII mission, astronaut Zhai Zhigang put on his spacesuit for the first time and completed the first extravehicular activity in China.

In the 1970s, China made its first manned space flight attempt, and the attempt to develop a space suit ended in failure. Since then, the development of China spacesuit has been stagnant for more than 30 years.

In April, 2004, China signed a cooperation contract with Russia to import the "Seahawk" extravehicular spacesuit from the Russian "Star" scientific research and manufacturing consortium. Russia has developed and produced three sets of "Meet the Sea" extravehicular spacesuits for flight, two sets of low-voltage training extravehicular spacesuits, four sets of water supply tank training extravehicular spacesuits and four sets of in-cabin docking systems for China, among which the power supply and communication equipment for flight and low-voltage training extravehicular spacesuits are developed by China.

Development process In July, 2004, China decided to develop an extravehicular spacesuit [5] to carry out extravehicular activities. Li Tanqiu, the chief designer, leads the R&D work in China Astronaut Research and Training Center.

In March 2005, Xi 'an Institute of Microelectronics Technology began to develop and produce space suit digital tube equipment, physiological signal amplifier, alarm signal amplifier and other equipment.

In May 2005, Zhengzhou Aerospace Electronic Technology Co., Ltd. began to develop and produce space suit cable network.

In February 2006, the trunk shell of spacesuit began to be developed and produced in the launch vehicle assembly plant.

In June 2006, the first set of final assembly products of spacesuit was completed. On September 30 of the same year, the spacesuit completed the preliminary design review and officially entered the preliminary stage.

In 2007, the extravehicular spacesuit was developed into a prototype. From the end of 2007 to the beginning of 2008, China's first extravehicular spacesuit and various supporting products were delivered one after another.

In April 2008, the spacesuit passed the interface matching joint test; In May and June of the same year, the simulated astronauts wore extravehicular spacesuits and passed the man-suit and man-spaceship-suit verification tests twice in the low-pressure cabin. In June 2008, the extravehicular spacesuit passed the acceptance.

The first generation of "Tian Fei" extravehicular spacesuit has a design mass of 65438±0.20kg and a height of 2m. Equipped with a life support system backpack, the height is1.30m, which can support at least 4 hours of extravehicular activities and can be reused for more than 5 times, with a value of more than RMB 30 million [8]. It has the functions of environmental control, life support and safety protection, such as oxygen supply, temperature control and carbon dioxide absorption. The spacesuit adopts semi-rigid sealing structure, which is anthropomorphic as a whole, that is, the trunk is hard from the waist up, the limbs are soft, and the rear hinge door-type threading and detaching mechanism is adopted. From top to bottom are helmets, upper limbs, trunk, lower limbs, pressure gloves and boots.

The helmet window of extravehicular spacesuit has four layers, which is designed with two-layer pressure structure and a protective layer structure outside, and the gold-plated filter window plays a role in visual protection; The helmet is designed with a camera, which can shoot astronauts' extravehicular operations; There is a lighting lamp on each side of the helmet, as well as a leakage alarm indicator and a language alarm. The whole extravehicular spacesuit is divided into six layers from inside to outside, including a comfort layer made of anti-static cotton cloth, a spare air-tight layer made of rubber, a main air-tight layer made of composite joint structure, a limiting layer made of polyester fabric, a thermal insulation layer that is insulated by thermal reflection and the outermost outer protective layer. The trunk reaches 7 floors, and the thickest bag has 20 floors.

The trunk shell of the extravehicular spacesuit is made of aluminum alloy thin-walled hardware, with a wall thickness of 1.5 mm and a compression resistance exceeding 120 kPa. The gas-liquid console of clothing can automatically control the flow of gas and liquid, so that astronauts can obtain suitable air and temperature. The outermost protective material of the spacesuit can withstand the temperature difference of plus or minus 100 degrees Celsius; The oxygen cylinder carried by clothes adopts recompression, which not only ensures safety, but also absorbs oxygen as much as possible. The space suit temperature system can guarantee the range of 24-28 degrees Celsius. The joint design of extravehicular spacesuit adopts "shrimp" structure. Compared with other spacesuits that rely on the corrugated structure of extrusion deformation, it ensures the flexibility and compactness of the joint.

Life support system backpack is the sealed door of spacesuit, and its shell is equipped with life support equipment for spacesuit outside the cabin, and the lower end of the shell is equipped with hanging bag and spare oxygen bottle. Close the backpack by tightening the rope and operating the closing handle. The outer layer of pressure gloves is made of fiber fabric, and the two layers are airtight, and special heat insulation rubber material is adopted, which can withstand the high temperature of 100℃; 1 the airtight layer is used to keep the tactile fingertip part.

The first generation of "Tian Fei" extravehicular spacesuit had no power device. Two orange safety tethers, one long and one short, extend from the lower right of the breastplate of the extravehicular spacesuit, and there are springs inside, which can be pulled to 3 meters at the longest and can bear a ton of tension. At the other end of the rope are two hooks, which can be fixed on the handrail of the track bulkhead when going out of the cabin. On the left side of the waist of the spacesuit, there is an 8-meter-long "electric umbilical cord" connected to the spacecraft, which can be used to transmit the physiological parameters of astronauts and can also be used as a backup safety tether. It can be put on and off in 2 to 3 minutes on the ground. In space, it takes about 15 hours from preparation to dressing.

On September 27th, 2008 16: 34, during the extravehicular activity of Shenzhou VII manned mission, astronaut Zhai Zhigang put on his spacesuit for the first time and completed the first extravehicular activity in China, waving a five-star red flag at the camera installed outside the capsule. Zhai Zhigang then retrieved the solid lubrication experimental samples loaded outside the cabin and started the spacewalk. 16: 58, the astronauts successfully completed the extravehicular activity and returned to the orbital module. The extravehicular activity lasted 25 minutes and 23 seconds, and the "spacewalk" lasted about 10 minute.

At 8 o'clock on July 4th, 200211,Liu Boming, the astronaut of Shenzhou XII, opened the door of the node cabin of Tianhe Core Module. At 1 1 02, astronauts Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo, dressed in a new generation of spacesuits, successively walked out of the node module of Tianhe core module, completing the installation of the foot limiter and the extravehicular workbench on the robotic arm.