Astronauts Put AMS Portable Manipulator to the Test in EVA Development Trials

If a team is preparing procedures or testing new tools for an upcoming spacewalk, chances are they will spend time in NASA’s Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory or using the Active Response Gravity Offload System (ARGOS) at Johnson Space Center. But what do you do if you need to conduct time-sensitive suited tests and neither facility is available? 

You think outside of the 6-million-gallon pool. 

The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) Project Office (APO) team recently found themselves in this very situation. They have been preparing for future spacewalks to upgrade components of the AMS - a particle physics experiment module mounted on the International Space Station that collects information about cosmic rays emanating from stars and galaxies millions of light years beyond the Milky Way. To date, it has collected data on about 232 billion cosmic ray events at an average rate of ~600 per second! 

The AMS Upgrades Project will deliver new hardware to AMS that will increase the capability to collect cosmic particle data and improve system heat rejection. The planned upgrade is expected to increase the instrument’s acceptance or field of view by almost 300%. The data from AMS informs the direction of theoretical physics assumptions about the origins of the universe. 

This is crucial for sifting through the cosmic rays, as the stringent criteria set by Nobel Laureate Samuel Ting require that 99% of the data be filtered out to ensure unparalleled accuracy. Ting, a revered physics professor at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, leads the AMS collaboration. 

“Professor Ting and the AMS Collaboration operate the experiment on the International Space Station from the AMS Payload Operations Control Center at the European Organization for Nuclear Research facility near Geneva, Switzerland. They have already published 26 papers that have dramatically changed our understanding of the origins of cosmic rays, dark matter, and our universe with this ~300,000 data channel instrument. NASA and the Air Force have also used AMS data to help predict space radiation levels and weather within the 11-year solar cycle,” said Ken Bollweg, AMS project manager within Johnson’s Engineering Directorate. 

“This upgrade will add another ~74,000 channels to expand the experiment’s aperture, significantly increase the data rate, and may lead to new discoveries within the lifetime of the orbital outpost. New radiators are required to reject heat from existing detectors that will be covered by the new detector. Adding another radiator to the Power Distribution System is expected to extend its lifetime until the space station is decommissioned.” Bollweg has been working on AMS with Professor Ting and the AMS Collaboration since the experiment’s inception in 1994. 

To facilitate these upgrades, the APO devised an AMS Portable Manipulator (APM). The APM was initially conceived as support equipment for ARGOS testing – a versatile tool to help a suited subject reposition large AMS test article mockups under a suited subject. However, ARGOS was not available for suited tests due to return to service system revalidation testing.   

Thanks to some creative problem solving, the AMS APO team was able to conduct pressurized, stand-alone suited testing in Building 9S at Johnson. A series of tests were conducted from January 22-26, 2024, with NASA astronauts Bob Hines and Mike Fincke and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Luca Parmitano serving as test subjects.  

Input from suited astronaut test subjects is critical for ensuring that the design of extravehicular activity (EVA) hardware reflects the real-life experiences of astronauts during spacewalks. These tests support the design development of hardware that will be installed on the AMS as part of planned on-orbit upgrades.  

“I would like to give special thanks to the APO team members at Jacobs, who took the initial concept of a positioning device to support EVA testing, performed the engineering and integration to bring it to reality working through all safety and operational requirements, and supported the suited testing in Building 9S,” said Amy Ellison, AMS deputy project manager within Johnson’s Engineering Directorate.   

“I would also like to thank the Space Suit and Crew Survival Systems Branch folks for assisting with pressurized suit integration, support equipment, Test Readiness Review support, and exceptional support during the tests, and many others across the center who contributed to the success of these tests.” 

The APM was brought from concept to reality and successful operation by the AMS Project Office and the talented team members at Jacobs under the Johnson Engineering, Technology, and Science II contract. 

Find more information on the AMS experiment here.