The Gravity Loading Countermeasure Skinsuit
Contributors | Rachel Bellisle, Ciarra Ortiz, Dava Newman
Credit: Jimmy Day
The Gravity Loading Countermeasure Skinsuit (or “Skinsuit”) is an intravehicular activity suit for astronauts that has been developed to simulate some of the effects of Earth gravity. The Skinsuit produces a static load from the shoulders to the feet with elastic material in the form of a skin-tight wearable suit.
This wearable system is intended to supplement exercise during future missions to the moon and Mars (where current exercise equipment may be too large and bulky for the small spacecraft) and to further attenuate microgravity-induced physiological effects in current ISS mission scenarios.
The Skinsuit targets multiple physiological systems, aiming to mitigate spaceflight-induced musculoskeletal adaptations, such as spinal elongation. Recent work aims to investigate the sensorimotor and neuromuscular effects of the Skinsuit. The sensorimotor effects of microgravity are difficult to simulate on Earth, even in bed rest analogs or body-weight suspension, due to the constant force of gravity on the body and body-load receptors. The goal of this project is to use the microgravity afforded by a parabolic flight to explore a research question: Can the Skinsuit restore sensorimotor functions that are typically altered in microgravity?
The Skinsuit was tested during a 2021 Zero-G parabolic flight, during which the participant performed arm movements with and without the Skinsuit for comparison to typical 1-G muscle activation patterns and postural control strategies.
News & Publications
Life in space: Preparing for an increasingly tangible reality (MIT News)