Human Engineering Design Standards for Extravehicular Activity in Advanced Space Programs

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is currently developing the Man/Systems Integration Standard which will detail the human factors engineering design requirements for future spacecraft. Several existing standards and guidelines from the Johnson Space Center and the Marshall Space Flight Center, along with human engineering standards from the Department of Defense will be superseded by this NASA wide standard. One chapter to be included in this human engineering standard, which is not usually included in general standards, will deal with extravehicular activity (EVA) where the human wears a pressurized life support system and operates in the microgravity environment. This paper details the development and contents of the EVA portion of the new NASA Man/System Integration Standard.