The Spacesuits — Engineering Archive
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Engineering Archive · thespacesuits.com
THE<br>SUIT<br>ARCHIVE
Seventy years of pressure garment engineering across US, Soviet, Russian and incoming Chinese programs. Every variant. Every subsystem. Every failure. Primary sources—not Wikipedia summaries.
Explore Database<br>Failure Cases<br>Roadmap
37+Variants
16Subsystems
16+Failures
70yrHistory
SK-1 / Vostok<br>1961
Apollo A7L + PLSS<br>1969
Orlan-M / ISS<br>1977
US Mercury IVA · X-15 · Gemini G3C · G4C · G5C · Apollo A7L · A7LB · Skylab · EMU · ACES · Enhanced EMU · xEMU · AxEMU<br>SOVIET/RU SK-1 · SK-2 · BERKUT · YASTREB · KRECHET · SOKOL-K · SOKOL-KV-2 · ORLAN-D · ORLAN-DM · ORLAN-DMA · ORLAN-M · ORLAN-MK · STRIZH<br>CHINA Shenzhou IVA · Haiying · Feitian Gen-1 · Feitian Gen-2 · Feitian D/E · Wangyu Lunar Suit<br>EUROPE/ESA EVA Suit 2000 · EuroSuit IVA · Hermes EVA Concept<br>US Mercury IVA · X-15 · Gemini G3C · G4C · G5C · Apollo A7L · A7LB · Skylab · EMU · ACES · Enhanced EMU · xEMU · AxEMU<br>SOVIET/RU SK-1 · SK-2 · BERKUT · YASTREB · KRECHET · SOKOL-K · SOKOL-KV-2 · ORLAN-D · ORLAN-DM · ORLAN-DMA · ORLAN-M · ORLAN-MK · STRIZH<br>CHINA Shenzhou IVA · Haiying · Feitian Gen-1 · Feitian Gen-2 · Feitian D/E · Wangyu Lunar Suit<br>EUROPE/ESA EVA Suit 2000 · EuroSuit IVA · Hermes EVA Concept
18
US Program Variants
Mercury through AxEMU. 18 operational and reference variants spanning IVA, IEVA, and orbital EVA systems.
17
Soviet / Russian Suits
SK-1 to Orlan-MK. Rescue IVA, lunar EVA concepts, and the rear-entry Orlan family still operating on the ISS today.
50+
Failure Modes Logged
Hard failures, near-misses, chronic constraints. Includes EVA-23 — the helmet water intrusion that nearly killed Luca Parmitano.
China & Europe Now Live
6 Chinese suits from Shenzhou IVA through Wangyu lunar suit. Plus ESA EVA Suit 2000 and EuroSuit IVA tested on ISS by Sophie Adenot in 2026.
// Variant Master Database
Featured Suits
Normalized across pressure, mass, life support, mission role and failure modes
View All 37 Suits →
PROTO-001<br>Prototype<br>EXPERIMENTAL
Mk II Model O
USAF · B.F. Goodrich
1956
Pressure
TBD
System mass
TBD
Life support
Not publicly documented
EVA duration
N/A
"Established B.F. Goodrich as the lead US full-pressure suit contractor before Mercury existed"
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PROTO-002<br>Prototype<br>EXPERIMENTAL
Mk II Model R
USAF · B.F. Goodrich
1956
Pressure
TBD
System mass
TBD
Life support
Not publicly documented
EVA duration
N/A
"Parallel development track alongside Model O testing different mobility solutions"
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PROTO-003<br>Prototype<br>EXPERIMENTAL
Mk IV Arrowhead
US Navy · B.F. Goodrich
late 1950s
Pressure
TBD
System mass
TBD
Life support
Not publicly documented
EVA duration
N/A
"Naval and NASA pressure suit research tracks cross-pollinated significantly in this era"
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PROTO-005<br>Prototype<br>EXPERIMENTAL
Navy Mark IV
US Navy · B.F. Goodrich
1959
Pressure
TBD
System mass
TBD
Life support
Not publicly documented
EVA duration
N/A
"The most direct production line from naval aviation pressure suits to spaceflight hardware"
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PROTO-004<br>Prototype<br>EXPERIMENTAL
Mk IV Suit
US Navy · B.F. Goodrich
1960s
Pressure
TBD
System mass
TBD
Life support
Not publicly documented
EVA duration
N/A
"Naval pressure suit lineage running parallel to NASA programs"
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VAR-001<br>IVA
Mercury IVA
NASA · B.F. Goodrich
1959–1963
Pressure
3.7 psi / 25.5 kPa
System mass
22 lb
Life support
Vehicle provided
EVA duration
N/A
"Even a simple IVA suit needs water survival and cockpit visibility contingencies"
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// Engineering Deep-Dive
WHY GLOVES<br>KEPT KILLING<br>EVERY MISSION
Across 70 years and three space programs, the same subsystem remained the single most persistent mission limiter: the glove. Hand fatigue in Gemini IV made America's first EVA nearly catastrophic. Cold-object handling plagued Apollo. Pre-Phase VI EMU glove injuries—numbness, bladder bunching, palm-bar wear-through into hand—drove formal NASA injury surveillance in the 1990s.
The archive documents 12 distinct glove development lines across US and Soviet programs. Not what was built—but why each iteration failed to solve the fundamental physics of dexterity under 3.7–5.8 psi. The Russian BERKUT glove of 1965 and the ISS Phase VI of 2002 share the same core failure: torque and thermal performance trade against each other at the finger joint level.
Read Subsystem Analysis
Rear Entry<br>Why Soviets Chose Rear-Entry Architecture
KRECHET-94 and the Orlan family both use rear-entry hard upper torso. Not accidental — it solved donning alone on a lunar surface without ground crew. Traced from 1967 through modern suitport concepts.
Explore KRECHET →
Critical Failure<br>EVA-23: Helmet Water Intrusion
2013. ISS. Parmitano's helmet filled with water. Vision...