Spacesuits are also fashionable, and AxiomSpace is collaborating with Italian luxury clothing brand Prada to design high-tech spacesuits for NASA astronauts who will return to the moon in 2025 as part of the Artemis program.
A partnership between a space technology company and a high-fashion salon may seem like some very strange bureaucratic mistake, but there's sound logic to the decision. In the 1960s, the spacesuits worn by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin during the historic 1969 moonwalk were hand-sewn by tailors at International Latex Corporation in Dover, Delaware.
Making a decent space suit requires a lot of expertise and no small amount of engineering, as well as a deep understanding of the raw materials and how to sew them together to extremely tight tolerances.
Under the new agreement, Prada engineers will work with AxiomSpace to help design the Artemis Exploration Extravehicular Mobility Unit (xEMU) spacesuit, which will be worn by American astronauts during the Artemis III mission back to the moon. The goal is to create a flexible, durable and more comfortable spacesuit that can not only withstand the harsh lunar environment, but also allow astronauts to have higher mobility and smarter digital support systems.
Michael Suffredini, CEO of AxiomSpace, said: "We are excited to collaborate with PRADA on the development of the Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit (AxEMU) spacesuit. PRADA's technical expertise in raw materials, manufacturing processes and innovative design concepts will bring advanced technology that will not only help ensure astronauts' comfort on the lunar surface, but also take into account the much-needed human factors that traditional spacesuits do not have."