A new style, for a new space era – that’s the message NASA wants to send with the unveiling of brand new spacesuits for the return to the Moon, designed by Axion Space.
The Artemis III spacesuit prototype, the AxEMU, was unveiled during a “Moon 2 Mars” festival hosted at the NASA Space Canter in Houston. The AxEMU marks the first new spacesuit design since the Space Shuttle programme in the 1980s. It has been designed to allow greater flexibility for astronauts and to provide better protection from the unforgiving conditions in space.
The suits will be worn by astronauts on the Artemis III mission, which is scheduled to land near the lunar south pole in 2025. NASA hopes the event will mark the landing of the first woman and first person of colour on the Moon. Axiom said it designed the spacesuits with increased sizing and greater adjustability to fit “a wider range of the general population”.
Changes to the spacesuit design include making the suit lighter than its predecessors, at around 55 kg, with more joints to allow for a greater range of movement. There are so many joints, in fact, that astronauts will need to climb into the suit through a hatch at the back of it. Axiom has added a high-definition camera and extra torches above the helmet to help astronauts record their activities and use their equipment, even in darker settings.
Some things are staying the same, though. While the images unveiled by Axiom show off a darker and sleeker aesthetic, Artemis astronauts will still be wearing white versions of the spacesuit for their moonwalks. This is because the colour white helps to reflect heat and keep the humans inside the suits at the right temperature while they work in the harsh lunar environment. Axiom said it chose to use a dark grey cover material – created by the costume designer from the sci-fi series For All Mankind – for the unveiling of its prototype to hide the suit’s design.
The Artemis III spacesuit prototype, the AxEMU was unveiled by Axiom Space at Space Center Houston’s Moon 2 Mars Festival. NASA will receive a full fleet of the training spacesuits by late summer. Courtesy: Axiom Space.
