Space Suit Labeling Worksheet – Printable With a Key

All 13 parts on the diagram

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Front 11

Helmet A clear plastic bubble that locks onto the neck ring. The visor fits over it.
Visor It shields the eyes from bright sunlight. The sun visor has a thin coat of gold.
Helmet lights Small lamps at each side of the helmet. They light the work in the dark.
Camera A small TV camera. It sends pictures of the work as the astronaut sees it.
Hard upper torso A hard fiberglass shell that covers the chest. The arms, helmet and backpack fasten to it.
Display and control module A box of switches, valves and a small display. It is fixed to the chest.
Arms Each arm has joints at the shoulder and elbow. A ring at the wrist holds the glove.
Gloves The gloves snap onto rings at the wrists. Their fingertips are silicone rubber.
Lower torso The pants of the suit, with the boots joined on. It locks to the hard upper torso at the waist.
Boots The boots are joined to the lower torso.
Safety tether A line that keeps the astronaut fastened to the spacecraft. It clips to a ring at the waist.

Back, underneath 2

Life support backpack It holds the oxygen the astronaut breathes. It also removes carbon dioxide and supplies electricity.
SAFER A small jet pack. Its gas jets can fly an astronaut back to the station.

How this list was compiled: Every name checked on 2026-10-01, a name kept only where two independent sources use it: NASA's pages for students, What Is a Spacesuit? (grades K-4 and grades 5-8), https://www.nasa.gov/learning-resources/for-kids-and-students/what-is-a-spacesuit-grades-k-4/ and https://www.nasa.gov/learning-resources/for-kids-and-students/what-is-a-spacesuit-grades-5-8/ (helmet, visor, hard upper torso, arm assembly, gloves, lower torso, cooling garment with water tubes, life support backpack, SAFER), and the parts list from its educator guide Suited for Spacewalking, a public-domain government work, read through the web archive, https://web.archive.org/web/2017/http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/188963main_Extravehicular_Mobility_Unit.pdf (helmet, visor assembly with head lamps and a TV camera, hard upper torso, displays and control module, arms, gloves, lower torso with boots and rings for a safety tether, primary life support system, liquid cooling and ventilation garment, communications carrier assembly); Wikipedia, Extravehicular Mobility Unit and Simplified Aid For EVA Rescue, text only, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extravehicular_Mobility_Unit and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Aid_For_EVA_Rescue (hard upper torso, arm sections, gloves, helmet, visor assembly, lower torso assembly with boots, primary life support system, display and control module, liquid cooling and ventilation garment, communications cap, television camera, SAFER as a jet pack); a suit maker's booklet on its space suits, https://archive.org/details/MRS_PDFbot-spacesuits (lights, TV camera, visor assembly, helmet assembly, hard upper torso, arm assembly, glove assembly, lower torso assembly with boots, display and control module, liquid cooling and ventilation garment, communications carrier or Snoopy cap); a reference book on how products are made, read through archive.org's full-text search, https://archive.org/details/cdssupergluesals0000unse (chest-mounted display and control module, hard upper torso); and the national air and space museum's page on spacesuits, https://airandspace.si.edu/explore/stories/spacesuits (safety tethers). Not an official NASA publication. Licence: own work

The drawing: Drawn for this site on 2026-10-01 from plain geometry; no agency mark or maker's shape, nothing traced. Licence: own work

How it works

On this space suit labeling worksheet, eleven numbers are on the suit seen from the front, from the helmet down to the boots, and two are on the same suit seen from behind.

Read the full guide

Space suit worksheet word bank

In alphabetical order, to copy onto the board: arms, boots, camera, display and control module, gloves, hard upper torso, helmet, helmet lights, life support backpack, lower torso, SAFER, safety tether, visor.

Label an astronaut suit: the numbers that get swapped

Four numbers are on the head: 1 is the whole bubble, 2 its window, 3 the lamp boxes at its sides and 4 the small box on top. On the chest, 5 is the hard shell and 6 the box of switches fixed to it. Number 9 is the lower half of the suit, and 10 is the boots alone. From behind, 12 is the large pack and 13 the smaller unit round its base.

When marking, backpack is right on line 12, jet pack on line 13 and pants on line 9.
Faceplate is right on line 2, head lamps on line 3 and control panel on line 6.
The cooling garment and the cap worn under the suit are not on this sheet. The labeled space suit shows both.

Questions and answers

What is an astronaut's suit called?

The suit worn on spacewalks from the space shuttle and the International Space Station is formally the Extravehicular Mobility Unit, or EMU. Extravehicular means outside the spacecraft, and mobility means the astronaut can move around in the suit.

What does SAFER stand for?

Simplified Aid for Extravehicular Activity Rescue. The name is an acronym, which is why the key writes it in capitals.

Why does a space suit have so many layers?

Each layer has a job of its own. The flexible parts of the suit are made of several layers of material: some keep the oxygen inside the suit, and others protect the astronaut from space dust.

Were the first space suits made for spacewalks?

No. NASA's first suits were worn only inside the spacecraft. The suits of its first spacewalks had no life support of their own: a cord called the umbilical connected them to the systems of the spacecraft.