SuperLimbs

Artemis astronauts will aspire to do things humans haven’t done before, like building a habitable base to allow for long-term visits and exploring the heavily cratered lunar south pole.

Innovators across the world are working on solutions to help them achieve their goals, and to keep them safe. 

That includes researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), who are developing a set of wearable robotic limbs to help astronauts recover from falls.

The so-called SuperLimbs are designed to extend from a backpack containing the astronauts’ life support system. When the wearer falls over, an extra pair of limbs can extend out to provide leverage to help them stand, conserving energy for other tasks.

That could come in handy. 

The moon’s partial gravity makes maintaining balance tricky. The 12 astronauts who moonwalked on Apollo missions fell 27 times and had another 21 near misses, according to a University of Michigan study.