Umbilical cable

An umbilical cable or umbilical is a cable and/or hose which supplies required consumables to an apparatus. It is named by analogy with an umbilical cord. An umbilical can for example supply air and power to a pressure suit or hydraulic power, electrical power and fiber optics to subsea equipment.

Umbilicals connect a missile or space vehicle to ground support equipment on the launch pad before launch. Cables carry electrical power, communications, and telemetry, and pipes or hoses carry liquid propellants, cryogenic fluids, and pressurizing and purge gases. These are automatically disconnected shortly before or at launch.

Umbilical connections are also used between rocket stages, and between the rocket and its spacecraft payload; these umbilicals are disconnected as stages are disconnected and discarded.

Early space suits used in Project Gemini in 1965 and 1966 employed umbilicals to the spacecraft for to provide suit oxygen and communications during extravehicular activity (EVA). (Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov performed the first EVA using a self-contained oxygen backpack, and thus did not require an umbilical.) Later designs (first used on Apollo program lunar EVA in 1969) do not need spacecraft umbilicals, instead employing backpacks for self-contained oxygen, electric batteries, and radio communication.

Subsea umbilicals are deployed on the seabed (ocean floor) to supply necessary control, energy (electric, hydraulic) and chemicals to subsea oil and gas wells, subsea manifolds and any subsea system requiring remote control, such as a remotely operated vehicle. Subsea intervention umbilicals are also used for offshore drilling or workover activities.

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