page_title: Apollo/Skylab space suit
section_title: Skylab EMU
hierarchical_section_title: Apollo/Skylab space suit / Apollo 15-17, Skylab and ASTP  Spacesuits / Skylab EMU
caption_attribution_description: English: Alan Bean during Skylab 3 EVA. This was Alan Bean's only EVA on the skylab 3 mission.
context_page_description: The Apollo/Skylab space suit is a class of space suits used in Apollo and Skylab missions. The names for both the Apollo and Skylab space suits were Extravehicular Mobility Unit. The Apollo EMUs consisted of a Pressure Suit Assembly aka "suit" and a Portable Life Support System that was more commonly called the "backpack". The A7L was the PSA model used on the Apollo 7 through 14 missions.
  The subsequent Apollo 15-17 lunar missions, Skylab, and Apollo-Soyuz used A7LB pressure suits. Additionally, these pressure suits varied by program usage. For the Skylab EMU, NASA elected to use an umbilical life support system named the Astronaut Life Support Assembly.
context_section_description: The American space station was named  Skylab  and it had three crewed flights.  To minimize program costs, NASA elected to fund ILC Dover for modifications to the mid-entry Apollo A7LB EV PSA design to reduce costs and use an umbilical system named the Astronaut Life Support Assembly (ALSA) to allow extra-vehicular activities.  AiResearch won the competition for the ALSA.  The result was the Skylab EMU.   During launch, the space station was damaged.  The Skylab EMUs enabled emergency repair and outfitting tasks that permitted the program to conduct its long duration crewed missions and experiments. Skylab returned to all the crew members having the same configuration suits.
  With the exception of the Orbital Workshop (OWS) repairs carried out by Skylab 2 and Skylab 3, all of the Skylab EVAs were conducted in connection to the routine maintenance carried out on the Apollo Telescope Mount, which housed the station's solar telescopes.  Because of the short duration of those EVAs, and as a need to protect the delicate instruments, the Apollo lunar EVA backpack was replaced with an umbilical assembly designed to incorporate both breathing air (Skylab's atmosphere was 74% oxygen and 26% nitrogen at 5 psi) and liquid water for cooling.  The assembly was worn on the astronaut's waist and served as the interface between the umbilical and the suit.  An emergency oxygen pack was strapped to the wearer's right thigh and was able to supply a 30-minute emergency supply of pure oxygen in the case of umbilical failure.  Another unique feature of the Skylab EMU was its simplified EVA visor assembly that did not include an insulated thermal cover over the outer visor shell.
  There were three crewed Skylab flights.  All three missions included "space walks."
caption: Alan Bean wearing a Skylab A7L during a Skylab 3 EVA
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