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Space Style: Axiom and Prada have officially introduced a jointly developed spacesuit during the recent International Astronautical Congress held in Milan, Italy. The suit is almost ready for action, though it is still undergoing testing procedures and simulations in prohibitive conditions.
American private space company Axiom and Italian luxury brand Prada announced a partnership to design a new spacesuit for the NASA Artemis program in 2023. The fruits of that labor are beginning to appear. The Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit (AxEMU) is almost complete, and the two companies have teased the quasi-definitive design a year before actual astronauts will get to wear it.
While working on the prototype, Axiom staffers covered the AxEMU with a dark layer to protect the company’s proprietary technology. However, the finished suit is a “white material” that helps reflect heat and protects astronauts from high temperatures and lunar dust.
Prada didn’t just bring Italian style to the AxEMU project. The company used innovative sewing techniques and itssignificant expertise in working with different materials to bridge what Axiom describes as the gap between engineered functionality and aesthetics. The AxEMU suit looks stylish while remaining fully equipped for space exploration. The companies claim that it is also quite comfortable.
The suit accommodates a “wide range” of crewmember sizes, with enhanced flexibility, mobility, and safety compared to classic NASA spacesuit designs. Its most interesting modern features include 4G/LTE communication capabilities, biometric monitoring, and a new control interface. The gloves and boots are custom-fit and designed to withstand lunar temperatures and terrain conditions.
The AxEMU suit can provide astronauts with enough oxygen to perform spacewalks for eight hours or more. It also has several redundant systems, an onboard diagnostic computer, and other innovations for performing limited scientific tests during moonwalks. The AxEMU suit employs a monolithic design, with a single “foundational architecture” that allows future designs to evolve and scale to NASA’s future exploration programs.
The US agency plans to employ AxEMU for the first time during the Artemis III mission in 2025. American and European astronauts will return to walk on the Moon for the first time after the abrupt end of the Apollo program, preparing humanity for even grander space exploration goals like Mars and deep space. The AxEMU suit is almost ready for service, though Axiom plans to further examine the device with crewed underwater tests before 2025.
