Orlan Space Suit - History

History

The first spacewalk using an Orlan suit took place on December 20, 1977, on the Soviet space station Salyut 6, during the Soyuz 26 mission. Yuri Romanenko and Georgi Grechko tested the Orlan-D space suit. The Orlan-DM was used for the first time on August 2, 1985, by the cosmonauts Vladimir Dzhanibekov and Viktor Savinykh of Salyut 7.

The Orlan space suits were used for spacewalks on the Salyut stations, but for Mir they were replaced by the Orlan-DMA and Orlan-M suits: The Orlan-DMA was used for the first time in November, 1988, by the cosmonaut Musa Manarov from the Mir space station. The Orlan-M continued in use on Mir from 1997 until the end of the station's operational life, and is now used on the International Space Station. Orlan space suits have been used by Russian, American, European and Chinese astronauts. China calls their Orlan-M suits Haiying (海鹰, the literal translation of Орлан into Chinese).

On February 3, 2006, a retired Orlan fitted with a radio transmitter, dubbed SuitSat-1, was launched into orbit from the International Space Station.

In June 2009, the latest computerized Orlan-MK version was tested during a five-hour spacewalk to install new equipment on the International Space Station. The new suit's main improvement is the replacement of the radio-telemetry equipment in the Portable Life Support System backpack which contains a mini-computer. This computer processes data from the spacesuit's various systems and provides a malfunction warning. It then outlines a contingency plan which is displayed on an LCD screen on the right chest part of the spacesuit.