(NewsNation) — Fashion house Prada and Axiom Space debuted the design of a new, modernized spacesuit at the International Astronautical Congress in Milan this week.
The new suit is built for humanity’s planned return to the moon in 2026 on NASA’s historic Artemis III mission. It will be the first time humans have returned to the moon since 1972.
The upcoming moon landing will also mark the first time a woman and a person of color will land on the lunar surface.
The modern suit is designed to keep astronauts safe from the harsh environment of the moon and give more them more mobility than previous designs.
Axiom Space said in a release the suit has improved flexibility, performance and safety and also offers specialized tools for scientific missions.
The suit is a one size fits all design and includes lights, an HD camera, 4G/LTE communications and in-suit nutrition. It’s designed to withstand the extreme temperatures at the moon’s south pole and endure the coldest temperatures of the permanently shadowed regions of the moon.
Astronauts should be able to perform spacewalks lasting at least eight hours in the new suit.
The Artemis program has faced multiple delays after an initial order from the Trump administration to return humans to the moon by 2024. The planned lunar mission is meant to be a stepping toward to exploration of deeper space, including landing a human on Mars for the first time.
One of the delays NASA faced was not having a spacesuit that met the agency’s new criteria for a design.
Axiom Space says the suit is near the final stage of development and has already completed a pressurized simulation, the first one performed since the Apollo project.
