The French space agency CNES has announced a partnership with Spartan Space, the Institute of Space Medicine and Physiology (MEDES), and the sporting goods retailer Decathlon to develop a European intra-vehicular activity (IVA) spacesuit.
Marseille-based startup Spartan Space has been selected by CNES as the project’s prime contractor. Teams from the four organizations began discussions for the project in December 2023 at Decathlon’s research and development centre in Lille. Development of the spacesuit is currently underway, with the delivery of a prototype expected in 2024. The prototype will, according to CNES, represent “an elegant synthesis of expertise and collective innovation.”
“With the European ambition to contribute to future space missions with its own crews, France, with its skills and technological know-how, wishes to contribute to this growth by notably offering an IVA (Intra-Vehicular Activities) space suit,” Deputy Director of Exploration and Human Flights at CNES Sebastien Barde explained in a statement.
The CNES IVA spacesuit initiative is being carried out as part of the agency’s Spaceship FR project. Spaceship FR was initiated in 2018 as a vehicle to lay the groundwork for future crewed missions to the Moon and Mars in several domains, including habitats, energy generation and storage, and in-situ resource utilization.
