Improved Environmental Protection Garment (IEPG) Fabric

SBIR Phase II proposal to develop active dust mitigation spacesuit fabrics that provide micrometeroid protection at 25% weight savings using engineered materials.nbsp; Current Extra-vehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) suits do not provide protection against abrasive lunar dust because their fabric construction attracts and retains dust Force Engineering#39;s SBIR Phase I developed an innovative shell fabric andnbsp; Environmental Protection Garment (EPG) construction using high-strength conductive fiber textiles to provide lightweight environmental and micrometeroid protection with active and passive dust mitigation at 25% weight savings.nbsp; SBIR Phase II conducts system design and testing to confirm environmental protection and to refine and optimize active dust mitigation using conductive textiles to actively manage the electrical charge of the suit to match operating environment charge state, or actively repel dust using microprocessor control to tailored charge states of the suit to repel dust.nbsp;Force Engineering combines several well-developed technologies into a practical outer layer design, which will provide excellent protection from dust, fire, thermal, ultraviolet (UV) radiation, impact penetration and cut/puncture. The new garment protection system will be integrated to minimize weight and maximize flexibility such as to not prohibit, degrade, or interfere with the use of equipment. Full scale prototypes will be fabricated for puncture, dust, and abrasion tests as well as hyper-velocity impact testing to confirm micrometeroid protection.