Spartan MKV Low-poly Model 3D

In 2542, seventeen years after the MJOLNIR Mark IV entered service, production began on the next generation of MJOLNIR armor. A team under the leadership of Chief Scientist Dr. Catherine Halsey would spend the next ten years developing the suit. Using data collected from the Mark IV, hundreds of minor technical improvements and several major changes were made to the Mark V; most notably, the suit's armor plating underwent a total redesign and better materials were developed for its use. Separating the Mark V from the previous version of the system were two major breakthroughs in the ways in which the suit improves its wearer's combat effectiveness.[4]

The first major breakthrough, which was introduced with the first generation of the Mark V, was the addition of a self-recharging energy shield system, reverse-engineered from captured Kig-yar point defense gauntlets,[8] which repel objects and energy bursts, plus any other hazardous elemental energies. While impacts on the shield place a substantial drain on the system's power supply, the system's energy regenerates once the user is no longer under fire. However, the adaptation of the shield covering the entire body weakens the magnetic field, making the Mark V's shield system vulnerable to sustained fire. Energy shield technology was first tested on the Mark IV, though such tests were not especially successful.[3][9]

The second major advancement, which was not implemented until the second generation of the suit,[3][4] was the addition of a layer of computer memory superconductor that would allow an artificial intelligence to piggyback into the field with the operator to both provide and gather real-time intelligence. The synthesis of an artificial intelligence with a human brain is not possible without an upgrade to the user's already-specialized neural interface. Like the standard neural interface, the specialized neural lace translates electrochemical signals to digital code and routes them through an interface connection at the rear of the skull. Through this interface, the user's thoughts command the armor's movement and weapons, and input from the on-board sensors is fed directly to the user's mind. In addition, an AI personality and processing matrix can be carried by the armor and delivered to the suit via the specialized neural lace and on-board storage in a crystal data chip no larger than a personal credit card. Without the armor, a Spartan's reaction time is charted at twenty milliseconds; with the Mark V, and an AI on-board, the time required to translate thought into motion is rendered almost instantaneous.

The suit also possesses other upgraded features that enhance its wearer's abilities. It has an upgraded heads-up display linked to sensors that project shield strength and an improved motion detecting system in addition to providing other numerous readouts, including allies' vitality and shield status. These features are maintained and initialized by the Mark V BIOS firmware.

In its second phase, the Mark V MJOLNIR battle armor weighs 321.3 kilograms,[10] The SPARTAN/MJOLNIR combination is designed to be the most devastating intelligence tool ever created, as the AI can greatly increase the wearer's reaction time and vastly improve intelligence gathering capacity.