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RedDeerGuy1's avatar

Do modern spacesuits have heat and light?

Asked by RedDeerGuy1 (24986points) January 30th, 2022

What kind of battery do astronauts use in spacewalks?

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9 Answers

filmfann's avatar

According to someone at NASA:
The EMU (Extravehicular Mobility Unit) has a lithium battery with 26.5 Amp hours and an output voltage between 16–20 volts. It’s called the LLB (Long Life Battery) and consists of 80 18650 lithium ion cells composed of five serial banks of sixteen parallel cells.

elbanditoroso's avatar

Comment – @filmfann – 18650 cells are relatively heavy (quantity 1) for their size, so carrying arounf 80 of them on your back is a good but of weight and bulk. Yes, they’ll be used in a weightless environment, but still….

Blackwater_Park's avatar

80 18650 cells is only about 8 pounds.

RocketGuy's avatar

18650 cells have pretty good energy/mass ratio and relatively low cost, so were used in early Tesla cars too. Being in a 0g environment means they don’t have to worry about carrying around the weight during usage. It adds to the mass and inertia, so something they have to contend with if they are trying to accelerate/decelerate.

Blackwater_Park's avatar

@RocketGuy They seem to be used everywhere too. It’s not surprising to see them used like this.

RocketGuy's avatar

Economies of scale. Thousands are made every day for laptops. The cost per amp/hour is really good.

Tesla recently designed fatter ones with shorter + terminals so that they could squeeze more capability into a given volume.

kritiper's avatar

Probably. Space suits have to heat and cool. An external light (not one shining into your eyes) would probably exist on the outside of the suit.

RocketGuy's avatar

The lights shining into the eyes/faces are only found in sci-fi spacesuits to illuminate the actors’ faces. Real spacesuits have lights on the outside.
https://theworld.org/stories/2017-05-12/nasa-s-short-spacesuits-and-new-ones-may-not-be-ready-upcoming-missions

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