Prophylactic Body-Loading Suit - 'Penguin Suit'

Prophylactic Body-Loading Suit - 'Penguin Suit'

Cosmonaut Prophylactic Body-Load Suit, often referred to as a ‘Penguin Suit', as worn by cosmonauts on the Mir space station for two hours a day as part of the exercise regime. It has been mocked-up with patches to match the 1991 Project Juno mission, which the first Brit in space, Helen Sharman, took part in. Helen wore an identical suit to this one on board Mir.

Humans have evolved to live with gravity. In orbit, astronauts/cosmonauts are in a microgravity environment - floating about in weightlessness. Exercise and use of equipment like this Penguin Suit, helps to keep blood flowing to the extremities, stop bones degrading, and prevent muscle wastage. The suit is elasticated and weighted and has foot stirrups - all of which help impart forces on the wearer to simulate the effect gravity has on the body whilst exercising here on Earth. The suits are commonly referred to as penguin suits, as during testing under Earth’s gravity the wearer waddles like a penguin - due to the weights, pulley systems, and elasticated materials that restrict motion whilst wearing the suit.

The basic concept for these penguin suits came from the Russian Center for Aeronautical and Space Medicine. Specialist spacesuit manufacturers, Zvezda, turned the concept into reality for the Soviet space programme. Zvezda made this suit in 1984, and it was used in cosmonaut training. The success of penguin suits in keeping cosmonauts physically fit in the space environment led to the spin-off invention of the Adeli suit - a specialist suit designed to help treat people with physical disabilities. The name 'Adeli' is a reference to the Adélie penguin, which was chosen to acknowledge the penguin suits that had inspired it.