Multifunctional, Self-Healing Hybridsil Materials for EVA Space Suit Pressure Garment Systems

A Phase II SBIR transition of NanoSonic?s high flex HybridSil space suit bladder and glove materials will provide a pivotal funding bridge toward Phase III maturation of this very promising lightweight, self-healing pressurized space suit assembly technology. Based on highly encouraging Phase I results indicating 1) its self-healing bladder composites instantly repair after puncturing with a 2 mm probe in vacuum at 10-5 torr to maintain stable operational bladder pressures of 4.3 and 8.1 psi and 2) HybridSil armor array padding provides increased abrasion and puncture resistance at lower weights than currently employed glove padding while meeting established adhesion and modulus metrics, NanoSonic envisions significant Phase III transition potential into next-generation EVA space suit ensembles. To meet its proposed technical objectives, NanoSonic proposes an aggressive 24-month Phase II SBIR research program to further optimize its high flex HybridSil space suit bladder and glove materials and demonstrate their manufacturing compatibility. Upon Phase II completion, NanoSonic will provide NASA with operational lower arm bladder and TMG glove softgood prototypes integrating its optimized high flex HybridSil self-healing composite and armor array padding respectively.