Joey Roulette
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Collins Aerospace, a subsidiary of RTX Corp, is in talks with NASA to give up a contract to build new space suits for astronauts on the International Space Station. people familiar with the discussion.
The contract was part of a $3.5 billion deal NASA awarded to Collins and Axiom Space in 2022 to build new spacesuits for the ISS and future missions to the Moon. Collins received an initial $97 million for the ISS space suit program, while it could have competed with Axiom for more money to work on lunar space suits.
But Collins’ role in the program was unstable and development was behind schedule, and the company was in talks with NASA officials about how to wind down its role in the program, the two people said.
“After careful evaluation, Collins Aerospace and NASA have mutually agreed to cease fulfilling Extravehicular Activity Services (xEVAS) orders,” a Collins spokeswoman said in a statement, referring to the spacesuit contract.
NASA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The spacesuit problems add to a long history of difficulties NASA has had in modernizing its essentially human-like spacecraft, the bulky and complex systems that U.S. astronauts use to travel beyond the ISS, about 250 miles (400 km) above Earth, for the current repairs on board the spacecraft. The exterior of the lab is the size of a football field.
Negotiations to terminate Collins’ contract come at a difficult time for NASA, as it experiences a rare series of cancellations of astronaut spacewalks on the ISS this month because of its current nearly 40-year-old spacesuits, which are operated by Collins.
The agency said a “suit discomfort issue” forced the cancellation of the two astronauts’ scheduled June 13 spacewalk, shortly before it was due to begin. Then Monday’s second spacewalk attempt was canceled minutes into the six-hour mission because of a water leak in U.S. astronaut Tracy Dyson’s space suit.
“Water everywhere… I have an arctic blast all over my visor,” Dyson reported to mission control.
Previous spacewalks were canceled due to problems with the station’s spacesuits, which have undergone only minor changes and upgrades since their inception nearly half a century ago. NASA’s inspector general and his independent Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel have long pushed the agency to update them.
Collins’ abandonment of the new spacesuit program appears to leave NASA’s future spacesuits in the hands of Axiom, a startup that manages astronaut missions and is building its own space station. Axiom did not immediately respond to a request for comment.