NASA, Axiom reveal new spacesuits for Artemis missions to the moon

March 15, 2023

— This suit was made for walking.

A prototype of the commercial spacesuit that U.S. astronauts plan to wear during the next mission to land on the moon was unveiled on Wednesday (March 15). Unlike the iconic garments worn by the Apollo astronauts more than 50 years, this new suit is a "rental" — designed, built and soon to be leased to the space agency by Axiom Space, a space services company.

"We're carrying on NASA's legacy by designing an advanced spacesuit that will allow astronauts to operate safely and effectively on the moon," Mike Suffredini, Axiom Space president and CEO, said in a statement. "Axiom Space's Artemis III spacesuit will be ready to meet the complex challenges of the lunar south pole and help grow our understanding of the moon in order to enable a long-term presence there."

In 2022, NASA awarded Axiom a $228.5 million task order under a $1.26 billion contract to build the agency's next-generation spacesuits to support the Artemis lunar missions. Leveraging the xEMU, a suit that was developed by the engineers at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, the new Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit (AxEMU) spacesuit provides increased flexibility, greater protection against the harsh environment and specialized tools to achieve exploration needs and expand scientific opportunities.

Using innovative technologies, the AxEMU will "enable exploration of more of the lunar surface than ever before," an Axiom description read.

AxEMU prototype spacesuit reveal. Click to enlarge video in new pop-up window. (NASA)

The Axiom-furnished spacesuits that NASA astronauts will don on the moon will have a white outer layer to reflect heat, protecting the wearer from the extreme high temperatures when in sunlight. For the purposes of Wednesday's reveal and to conceal the suit's proprietary elements, the prototype was adorned with Axiom's logo and features the company's brand colors of blue, black and orange.

Axiom collaborated with costume designer Esther Marquis from the Apple TV+ alternate Apollo history series "For All Mankind" to create the custom cover layer.

The AxEMU will provide NASA with the commercially-developed human systems needed to access, live and work on and around the moon. The advanced suit was designed from the start to accommodate a wide variety of crew members.

On Artemis III, targeted for launch in December 2025, NASA will land the first woman and the next American to walk on the moon. Future Artemis missions will bring the first person of color and other partner nations' astronauts, including crew members from Japan and the European Space Agency's member states.

Axiom Space partnered with a team of industry experts to create the AxEMU, including KBR, Air-Lock, Arrow Science and Technology, David Clark Company, Paragon Space Development Corporation, Sophic Synergistics and A-P-T Research. Though Axiom has trained privately-funded crews to launch to and live on the International Space Station and is developing its own commercial space station, this is the first time that the company has built a pressurized garment for use in space, let alone the moon.

"Our expert team is ready to provide NASA the next-generation spacesuit," said Mark Greeley, Axiom Space's extravehicular activity (EVA) program manager. "We carefully considered years of lessons learned by NASA and used that experience to build a spacesuit for the moon and for our future Axiom Space customers."

In addition to furnishing the AxEMU spacesuits, Axiom Space will also provide systems training and real-time operations support to NASA, among other services.

Using innovative technologies, the new Axiom Space spacesuit will enable exploration of more of the lunar surface than ever before. (Axiom Space)

March 15, 2023

— The history-making spacesuits worn by the first woman and next American astronaut to walk on the moon will be abandoned on a SpaceX lunar lander rather than be returned to Earth for their reuse or museum display.

Axiom Space, the Houston-based space services company selected by NASA to design, build and furnish the spacesuits for the 2025 Artemis III lunar landing mission, unveiled a prototype of its lunar garb during a press event at Space Center Houston on Wednesday (March 15). Axiom president and CEO Michael Suffredini and Mark Greeley, the company's program manager for extravehicular activity, spoke about the fate of the Artemis III spacesuits in a brief interview.

"They will go up on Starship and then the crew will transfer over from Orion to Starship to go down to the lunar surface," Greeley told collectSPACE, referring to how the two garments would first get to the moon.

NASA's approach to achieving the first lunar landing in more than 50 years differs from the last time it went with Apollo, in that the crew launches separately from the moon lander and then they rendezvous in lunar orbit. Four Artemis III astronauts will depart Earth aboard the Lockheed Martin-built Orion capsule. Once at the moon, two of the crew members will transfer over to the human landing system, a version of SpaceX's Starship spacecraft, while the other two stay in lunar orbit aboard Orion.

At the end of the mission's surface operations, the two Artemis moonwalkers — including the first woman to land on the moon — will liftoff on Starship and then rendezvous with Orion to return to Earth. Due to weight constraints, only the small stash of moon rocks they bring back from the moon and perhaps some low mass equipment will be transferred to Orion for the trip home.

"The spacesuits will go back on Starship and then Starship will remain in [lunar] orbit indefinitely," said Greeley.

At least that is the plan for the two Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit (AxEMU) spacesuits used on the Artemis III mission as of Wednesday.

"That is the current thought process," said Suffredini. "But this is several years from now and those kinds of things do come up. So it wouldn't surprise me if we had a conversation at some point as to what might be possible."

"Perhaps gloves or some other small parts might come back," added Greeley.

Once back from the surface of the moon, Starship will lack the fuel needed to fly back to Earth. The vehicle is designed so that it can be refueled, but for Artemis III in late 2025, no refilling station is expected to be available.

Whatever can and does come back from the moon in terms of the AxEMUs, will be Axiom Space's to do with as the company chooses.

"The suits are ours," said Suffredini. 'We're providing a service and that's really important, because if we didn't own them, we couldn't sell services to others. That's the whole concept behind this commercialization thing that NASA is doing. If NASA builds them, it is hard to sell services, but when we build it ourselves and provide NASA services then we can also sell services to others. So we own that asset."

If the Artemis III AxEMU spacesuits are disposed of in lunar orbit, it would not be the first time that the astronauts' outfits from historic NASA missions were unable to be saved.

On the Apollo missions, the astronauts wore the same pressure garments to walk on the moon as they did to launch from and return to Earth, so the suits made the round trip. The parts they added to enable working on the lunar surface, though, were often left behind to save weight.

Hence, the boots (or overshoes) that Neil Armstrong wore to take his first "small step" are still at Tranquility Base.

During the space shuttle-era, the only spacesuits lost were those aboard the ill-fated missions of Challenger and Columbia. Once it was decided to retire the winged orbiters, the initial thought was that NASA would stock the shuttle's left over spacesuit parts on the International Space Station.

Lacking a vehicle with the required downmass capability, the plan for the extravehicular mobility units (EMUs) was to dispose of them as they aged out of service. The spacesuits would be allowed to burn up with other refuse packed aboard spent Russian cargo craft.

Ultimately, that did not come to be, as NASA turned to its commercial partners to fly crew and cargo to and from the space station. SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft has since been used to land spacesuit components for servicing on Earth, enabling their continued reuse.

The Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit (AxEMU) spacesuits that will fly on NASA's Artemis III lunar landing mission in 2025 will have a white outer layer. The prototype seen here has a cover designed by Esther Marquis, costume designer for the Apple TV+ series "For All Mankind." (collectSPACE)