Technical Paper
Applied Ethological Study of Astronaut Behavior During Eva Simulations with a Wet Suit Prototype
1991-07-01
911531
The French Space Agency (CNES) has developed a “wet” suit based on the Soviet flight suit. This concept, which requires a breathing system for underwater tests, has been fully validated by a replay of a real French-Soviet EVA space operation. The prototype offers the main advantage of placing both the astronaut and the suit in neutral buoyancy during EVA training. The man-machine interfaces were checked during several donning-doffing operations in simulations of weightlessness both in water and in parabolic flights. These experiments were analyzed from an ethological point of view to correlate the mechanical constraints of the suit with human motor performance. The ethological approach is characterized by the observation, description and quantification of the astronaut's behaviour when performing various tasks. Video recordings are made of his motor activity (orientation, movement and posture) in real or experimental situations such as water immersion or parabolic flights.