Manned spacecraft extra-vehicular activities preparation test

The 6m-diameter horizontal thermal vacuum facility located at Beijing Space Flight Center was built in the 1990s. It has an effective volume diameter of 4.2m, a length of 12m and an effective length of 9.5m. The designed limited vacuum of the chamber was 5×10-6Pa without load. The temperature of the cold shroud which simulated the cold-black environment in space was 100K and the emissivity was larger than 0.90. The designed heat load of the LN2 (liquid nitrogen) system was 40kW and the system used single-phase closed cycle. The system can work continually for 20 days. This facility is part of the largest thermal vacuum chamber, KM6, in China. It was designed for astronauts training on the ground. The facility is composed of 3 cabins independently. Cabin A and B are air lock in which astronauts can prepare their equipments before entering the vacuum chamber. Cabin C is the main chamber for astronauts to do their EVA training. This facility was refurbished on the demands of evacuation and repressurizing test of the air lock. The life support system for chamber A and B could keep them at normal pressure during the test. Meanwhile, a new combined repressurizing system was also designed so that Chamber C can be repressurized to latm in 20s in an emergent and 30mins in a normal situation. Recently, the preparation vacuum tests for extra-vehicular activities were performed in the refurbished facility. The test verified the compatibility of airlock evacuation and repressurizing capability, and the compatibility of operational space for astronauts inside spacecraft. It also verified the interfaces of spacesuit and the gas circuit, the liquid circuit and the electric circuit on-board. Further more, it verified the procedure and duration of EVA operation inside/outside the spacecraft and the synergism of two astronauts.