Summary

Description

<p>Resistive crew exercise equipment for Orion and other exploration spacecraft will be severely impacted by space constraints in both storage and use. Development of a compact, high variable torque rotary damper will facilitate the design of exercise equipment.  Rotary motion is the most direct when applied to human joints, such as knees, elbows, hips and ankles. On a prior ICA funded project, linear magneto-rheologic dampers were used on an exercise device. Converting joint rotary motion into linear motion on the damper required additional mechanisms with weight penalties. Once this compact rotary MR damper is developed, it may be integrated with the Orion Crew Seat to be used as a resistive exercise device as well as a launch/landing load damper.   This also allows the seat to have dual use as a seat for launch/landing and as an exercise device.</p>