Spacesuits and EVA Gloves Evolution and Future Trends of Extravehicular Activity Gloves

Porto, the institutional repository of the Politecnico di Torino, is provided by the University Library and the IT-Services. The aim is to enable open access to all the world. Please share with us how this access benefits you. Your story matters. The total time of Extravehicular Activity (EVA) performed by astronauts has increased significantly during the past few years. On the other hand, the bulk and stiffness of the suit itself and in particular of the gloves generate some difficulties for the astronauts to perform their tasks in space. Therefore, it is necessary to improve the EVA glove technology for future needs. Since a lack of categorized information for those who want to improve EVA gloves is evident, in this work a survey on related literature has been carried out and fundamental data has been categorized. The paper starts with an overview on the historical and chronological progress of EVA suits and EVA gloves followed by a review of the previously demonstrated EVA gloves including American and Russian ones. The remaining part of the paper is dedicated to the characteristics of current EVA gloves and to present and future trends in research for further improvements.