9
wiredInUSA - March 2016
MAKING
THENEWS
Cable comes home
Fifty years after an Apollo space walk,
a flat cable harness has returned to
Cicoil. The Bio-Harness assembly was
built by Cicoil for the 1969 Apollo 9 space
flight, and has been bought back by
the company in a NASA Apollo space
program auction. The harness is said to
look in excellent condition, especially
considering its age and use.
The 26 inch long electrical biomedical
harness was worn by Commander Jim
McDivitt during the ten day Apollo 9 flight.
The harness was designed to be
worn underneath an intra-vehicular
constant wear garment when inside
the spacecraft, and under the
extra-vehicular pressure suit during
spacewalk activities.
The assembly enabled continuous
monitoring of vital signs, such as blood
pressure, respiration, body temperature
and pulse rate for each astronaut during
flight, orbit and spacewalk operations.
All three astronauts on the flight,
Commander McDivitt, and astronauts
David Scott and Rusty Schweickart,
utilized Cicoil bio-harnesses.
Cicoil’s flat cable harnesses were also
used by astronauts on the Mercury-Atlas
6, Gemini 4, and Apollo 11 spacemissions.
Cicoil
has
manufactured
cable
assemblies for the Mercury and Gemini
space missions, Skylab, Mercury Voyager,
Space Shuttle, Tri-Athlete lunar vehicle,
the Mars Rover, and for space transport
rockets and satellites.
INDEXCicoil’s space cable flying high for Apollo 9