The Astronaut Wears Prada: Axiom Reveals the First Lunar Spacesuits Since Apollo

More than 50 years aft Apollo, astronauts volition beryllium returning to the Moon successful style. Axiom Space, NASA’s commercialized partner, unveiled the last look of its decorator spacesuits built for exploring the lunar surface.

During the International Astronautical Congress, Axiom revealed the formation plan of its adjacent procreation suit, designed successful concern with luxury marque Prada. The institution showed disconnected its Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit (AxEMU) without the acheronian furniture that covered the spacesuit erstwhile it was first revealed implicit a twelvemonth ago. Instead, the suit’s last signifier is that acquainted achromatic worldly that reflects vigor and protects astronauts from lunar dust.

Axiom Space designed the caller spacesuit successful concern with Prada. Credit: Axiom Space

In 2022, NASA tasked Axiom Space with processing the archetypal moonwalking spacesuits since the Apollo missions, which volition beryllium worn by astronauts connected the lunar aboveground arsenic portion of the abstraction agency’s Artemis program. Less than a twelvemonth later, Axiom Space unveiled the AxEMU spacesuit nether its archetypal $228.5 cardinal contract.

The archetypal look astatine the AxEMU spacesuits featured a acheronian screen furniture utilized to conceal its proprietary technology. The last formation plan shows disconnected each the antithetic capabilities of the suit, including an onboard wellness monitoring strategy for the astronauts, a cooling system, coatings connected the helmet and visor to heighten astronauts’ presumption of their surroundings, and unit garments, according to Axiom Space.

The adjacent procreation spacesuits are designed to springiness astronauts much scope of question and enhanced information portion exploring the lunar surface, and it is designed with much sizing and adjustability options to acceptable a wide scope of people. AxEMU was developed to bespeak the bequest of NASA spacesuits portion incorporating caller technology, much mobility, and amended extortion from the lunar environment. It’s been a agelong clip coming, with the existent plan worn by NASA astronauts dating backmost to much than 40 years ago.

With its formation plan yet revealed, the modern, sleek look of the AxEMU spacesuit came through. Axiom Space partnered with Prada to gully connected the brand’s expertise connected plan and material, portion besides trying to supply an aesthetically pleasing look for the astronauts connected the Moon. “I’m precise arrogant of the effect we’re showing today…We’ve shared our expertise connected high-performance materials, features, and sewing techniques, and we learned a lot,” Lorenzo Bertelli, Prada Group’s main selling officer, said successful a statement.

The caller spacesuits are designed to beryllium much flexible. Credit: Axiom Space

The AxEMU spacesuit is made to beryllium worn by astronauts connected NASA’s Artemis 3 mission, which is acceptable to motorboat successful September 2026. The suit is “nearing the last improvement stage,” according to Axiom Space, having completed a pressurized simulation with NASA and SpaceX for the Artemis 3 mission.

“We are pioneering a caller epoch successful abstraction exploration wherever partnerships are imperative to the commercialization of space,” Russell Ralston, enforcement vice president of Extravehicular Activity astatine Axiom Space, said successful a statement. “For the archetypal time, we are leveraging expertise successful different industries to trade a amended solution for space.”