UND engineered NDX space suit goes international

David L. Dodds

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

7-12-2012

Abstract

UND engineered NDX space suit goes international

The University of North Dakota has made big waves globally with its planetary exploration system, dubbed NDX. With funding sources that include the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the North Dakota Space Grant Consortium, the NDX system includes a space suit and wheeled rover. The NDX-2 suit will be connected to the rover by means of a suit port or suit lock assembly.

This year, NDX broke new ground in the attention department with an invitation to be part of the Building Technological Habitats exhibit at the Institute of Modern Art in Valencia (IVAM, site is in Spanish), Spain. The May-June international exhibit featured far-out technology and designs including FoxLin, Foster and Partners, Gehry Technologies, Hoberman, several groups from NASA—and UND's own NDX.

The NDX, together with the Portable Life Support System (PLSS) Assembly, and hatches are designed to function cooperatively for relatively rapid coupling and uncoupling of the sealed suit and sealed vehicle. It also works for the coupling and uncoupling of the PLSS assembly and the suit. Lastly, it's designed to facilitate the transfer of the PLSS assembly and the wearer through the hatch at appropriate phases of operation.

Timothy Holland (piloting the spacesuit in the photo) is one of two graduate students from the University of North Dakota's Department of Space Studies — Annie Wargetz is the other — who went to the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) near Hanksville, Utah, earlier this year, for field testing of the NDX-1 (North Dakota eXperimental-1), the only university-developed space suit in the United States.

The students were accompanied by Pablo de Leon (right), also from the Department of Space Studies, part of UND's John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences. De Leon, an Argentine aerospace engineer and senior research associate, is the principal investigator for the space suit project and director of the Human Spaceflight Laboratory at the Odegard School.

Holland, Wargetz and de Leon met up with Crew #112 of the MDRS to conduct geologic testing in the desert area around the station. They gained crucial information on the performance of the NDX-1 in allowing scientists to perform their exploration tasks.

NDX—designed and mostly student-built in the UND Department of Space Studies—is the brainchild of UND senior research associate Pablo de Leon. De Leon, an Argentine aerospace engineer, is the principal investigator for the space suit project and director of the Human Spaceflight Laboratory at the Odegard School.

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