There’s a lot going into NASA’s Artemis IV mission, which promises to put humans back on the moon for the first time in 50 years. Among the various moving pieces is a new spacesuit lining developed by Axiom Space and Prada. Yes, the fashion giant.
The two companies unveiled the liquid cooling and ventilation garment on Sunday during an event at Prada’s store in Manhattan. Its purpose is to serve as the inner lining of the AxEMU spacesuit that Axiom Space and Prada developed. The jumpsuit is fitted to the astronauts’ bodies so that the various cooling systems work effectively.
Prada and Axiom didn’t sacrifice fashion, either, as the suit’s form-fitting nature and tube design look pretty cool and wouldn’t be too out of place on a runway.
Axiom Space and Prada developed the garment in tandem; Prada handled the knitting, manufacturing and design, and Axiom Space worked on the liner’s cooling system and ventilation. Both systems are important, since human bodies generate a lot of “metabolic heat,” according to Axiom Space. The liner helps dissipate heat so that astronauts don’t overheat during the long spacewalks expected during the Artemis IV mission.
“Every minute astronauts spend outside their vehicle, the LCVG is working to keep them safe,” said Russell Ralston, Axiom Space senior vice president of spacecraft development. “It manages their thermal environment, supports their breathing and does it all while they’re pushing their bodies to the limit.”
During the announcement, Prada said that the suit is not only being used for NASA’s Artemis IV mission but is also being marketed to commercial space companies including Blue Origin and SpaceX for use in commercial space endeavors such as space tourism, where a spiffy designer spacesuit would be right at home.
Following the success of the Artemis II mission around the moon earlier this year, Artemis IV is aiming for an early 2028 launch — with the planned Artemis III mission in mid 2027. Artemis III will launch into low-Earth orbit, rendezvous with NASA’s lunar landers, perform tests and learn more about the effects of microgravity on lunar suits. Artemis IV will put humans back on the moon for the first time since 1972.
The LCVG is designed to be paired with the AxEMU spacesuit, also made by Axiom Space and Prada.
How does the spacesuit work?
The suit’s two primary functions are keeping astronauts cool during long spacewalks and helping them breathe in the vacuum of space. It accomplishes these feats with a series of tubes that run all over the astronaut’s body, delivering cooling and air while the astronauts do their thing.
“The LCVG circulates cold water through a network of tubes routed across the body’s major muscle groups, absorbing and carrying the heat away to the suit’s portable life-support system, where it will then be expelled into space,” Axiom Space said in the announcement. “Unlike legacy cooling garments, the Axiom Space LCVG features a fully redundant cooling circuit, ensuring a backup system is available if the primary loop fails.”
In addition to cooling, the suit provides ventilation. It’s designed to blow fresh oxygen across astronauts’ faces to “wash away” the exhaled carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide is captured by the system, recirculated and returned as oxygen.
While the LCVG keeps the astronauts comfortable, the AxEMU suit protects them from other problems, such as the harsh cold of the moon’s south pole. It also houses the recirculation system that turns carbon dioxide back into oxygen, various electronic systems, life support and more.
Per Axiom Space, the suit and liner should keep astronauts cool and protected for spacewalks lasting up to eight straight hours, while the suit can handle the cold of the moon’s permanently shadowed regions for up to two hours.
