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

Through the proposed NASA SBIR program, NanoSonic will work with ILC Dover to design, empirically optimize, and integrate multifunctional self-healing and self-diagnosing HybridSil composites for lighter weight EVA space suit pressure garment systems with enhanced durability and reliability. To that end, NanoSonic will create multifunctional, highly flexible HybridSil polymeric armor composites composed of high strength, electrically conductive fabrics embedded within highly flexible inorganic copolymer matrices containing dispersed, VOC-free self-healing polymeric capsules. NanoSonic's multifunctional, single-ply HybridSil space suit composites will be tailored for use within existing space suit layups and afford significant weight savings by enabling the use of less layers to achieve given a performance goal such as micrometeoroid and orbital debris protection, thermal control / insulation, and radiation protection. The proposed HybridSil composites will build from NanoSonic's pioneering laceration, abrasion, and puncture resistance drysuit, wetsuit, and fire protective fabric technologies. A nimble Phase III transition of optimized multifunctional HybridSil fabrics will be afforded by NanoSonic's established roll-to-roll flexible composite manufacturing infrastructure.