A Brooklyn, NY, based space company Final Frontier Design (FFD) has unveiled their new "3G" space suit at a NASA event on Capitol Hill.
FFD was chosen by NASA to represent small businesses at their "Tech Day on the Hill", attended by 16 members of Congress and over 500 staff and guests, including NASA's Administrator, Charlie Bolden.
The 3G suit, a full pressure IVA space suit, was designed expressly for the commercial space industry, both suborbital and orbital, and is safe, comfortable, lightweight, and inexpensive.
It is made for operation at +5 PSI, is built for flight certification, and weighs in at less than 15 pounds.
The 3G suit includes a host of unique and original features, including:
+ Hinged pressure tight visor
+ Carbon fiber waist ring
+ 13 individual adjustment point for sizing
+ Proprietary single layer pressure garment system
+ Simple and large chest entry
+ Cooling loops to the head, chest, hands and feet
+ Detachable, high dexterity gloves
+ Integrated communications port
+ Lightweight, accessible pressure regulator
+ Self Donning/Doffing capable
FFD's 3G suit is the culmination of more than 4 years of internal space suit development, and was funded in part by a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2012.
FFD is in negotiations for delivery of at least 5 additional suits in 2013, including suits for NASTAR and Zero2Infinity. FFD was founded in 2010 after a prize winning entry in NASA's Astronaut Glove Challenge. FFD is currently fulfilling 2 contracts for NASA related to EVA space suit technologies.
