Developed by five North Dakota colleges under a US$100,000 (A$129,400) grant from NASA, the blue 20 kilograms, two piece space suit took about twenty minutes to put on for its first “space walk.”
Shan de Silva, chairman of UND's Department of Space Studies said the suit’s colour, blue, was chosen to make it stand out, “The dust on Mars is red. If a white suit gets dirty, you wouldn't be able to differentiate an astronaut on the surface," he said.
The suit is designed so that the wearer can walk up a 45 degree slope, its gloves which can withstand low pressure and cold, have enough dexterity for tying a shoe. The suit’s shoes are modified cold-weather hunting boots.
It also has an undergarment made of advanced fireproofing material, and while its weight on Earth, 20kgs sounds heavy, in the lower gravity of Mars it would weigh just seven kilograms.
Mike Zietz monitored the temperature during the “space walk” and said it was about 38 degrees celsius inside the suit itself and 21 degrees celsius inside the helmet.
But while a usable suit would have to sustain an astronaut for several hours of exploration on the surface, the students' design did not address the issue of mother nature's call. “You've got to hold it," Mr de Leon said.
It took just over a year for the students from the University of North Dakota (UND), North Dakota State, Dickinson State, the state College of Science and Turtle Mountain Community College to create the suit, project manager Pablo de Leon, an aerospace engineer at UND said.
Suit components developed by the students have been the basis for three patent applications so far, Mr De Leon said, saying the suit was "essentially a self-contained spacecraft."