MOSCOW, March 18. /TASS/. The Zvezda R&D and Production Enterprise (part of the State Space Corporation Roscosmos) has made a spacesuit arm prototype based on exoskeleton technology, Zvezda Director General Sergey Pozdnyakov told TASS on Tuesday.
In 2022, Pozdnyakov told TASS that the enterprise was studying exoskeleton technology and planning to make a prototype for both the arm and the leg cover.
"We have made a working prototype for the spacesuit arm. We have carried out our own tests… The basic idea was that the mechanism should ‘pick up’ the cosmonaut’s movement and help him bend his arms. We have achieved this and made such a prototype. The tests have shown that we are on the right track," the Zvezda head said.
The Zvezda enterprise is primarily working on the spacesuit’s arms because the arms perform an overwhelming majority of operations aboard orbital stations, Pozdnyakov explained.
"It is not the Moon where you need to walk. That is why, the main emphasis is on improving the mobility of arms. Therefore, the spacesuit’s arms should offer good mobility and flexibility," he explained.
Also, the solutions developed may be integrated into the next-generation spacesuit for the future Russian Orbital Station (ROS), he presumed.
For the time being, the ROS operation is expected to begin with the spacesuits of the model currently in service aboard the International Space Station, he added.