In the short term, astronauts could use the device to add resistive force in microgravity to improve exercising on the International Space Station, NASA officials say. X1 can record information on each session and stream the data back to Earth, where doctors can monitor an astronaut's progress.

 

But NASA aims to send astronauts farther afield — to a near-Earth asteroid by 2025, then on to the vicinity of Mars by the mid-2030s — and X1 could really shine in deep space.

 

The suit "could provide a robotic power boost to astronauts as they work on the surface of distant planetary bodies," NASA officials wrote in a description of the technology earlier this month.