DEVELOPMENT OF A COMPREHENSIVE ASTRONAUT SPACESUIT INJURY DATABASE

摘要

Extravehicular Activity (EVA) is among the most challenging activities in human spaceflight. Maintainingastronaut health and comfort inside the spacesuit is critical to accomplish the tasks required for the mission.However, the current Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) spacesuit causes many astronauts minor musculoskeletalinjuries and discomfort, which could lead to suboptimal EVA performance and could impact mission success. Thisresearch effort highlights our effort to create a spacesuit injury and discomfort database to better track injuries andcountermeasures. The database is developed as part of our broader investigation of "Spacesuit TraumaCountermeasure System Development". The primary objective of the astronaut-spacesuit injury database is to gaininsight into the mechanisms causing spacesuit injuries. The database is compiled from a variety of sources, such asexisting databases and publications, oral histories, and astronaut debriefs. Once completely assembled, it will includepre-, in-, and post-flight injury information. Data analysis will identify the incidence of particular injuries, the detailsof injuries (e.g., location and severity), and trends, both in training and in-flight. Anthropometric measurements willbe included and data mining techniques will be used to find correlations between anthropometry, suit components,and injury. In addition, the application of current countermeasures is tracked in order to assess their effectiveness.The result is a single reference of spacesuit injury information. The astronaut spacesuit injury database will allowfuture researchers, spacesuit designers and engineers, medical personnel, and other stakeholders to gain insight intothe problems associated with EVA injury and discomfort, and to contribute new ideas and solutions to the EVAinjury problem.