Prada will be a key part of space history as soon as 2026.
Wednesday, Axiom Space and Prada introduced the flight design of the Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit spacesuit amid Astronautical Congress festivities in Milan. The suit is set to be won by astronauts on NASA’s upcoming Artemis III mission, which the agency currently expects to get off the ground “no earlier than” September of 2026.
Artemis III, remarkably, will stand as the first time humans have stepped onto the Moon since 1972. Put another way, the last time humans were humaning on the surface of the Moon, Star Wars was still half a decade away from existing.
“Our elite teams have redefined spacesuit development, establishing new pathways to innovative solutions and applying a state-of-the-art design approach for the AxEMU,” Matt Ondler, Axiom Space President, said in a statement shared Wednesday. “We have broken the mold. The Axiom Space-Prada partnership has set a new foundational model for cross-industry collaboration, further expanding what’s possible in commercial space.”
Key features in the design include improved flexibility, specialized tools and features aimed at bolstering the mission’s focus on the lunar South Pole, the ability to withstand extreme cold for “at least” two hours, and the facilitation of eight-hour spacewalks. Visibility for astronauts wearing the suit, meanwhile, is kept at a desired level thanks to “advanced coatings” on both the helmet and the visor.
For now, the suit is said to be drawing close to its final development stage, with additional testing set to take place in the run-up to a planned design review phase next year.
The mission itself is historic not only for its long-awaited restart of human-crewed Moon exploration, but also due to NASA and related partners’ previously reported plan of having Artemis III put “the first woman and first person of color on the surface of the Moon.”
With Artemis III, NASA and partners, including SpaceX, will assemble a crew of four for a journey set to last roughly 30 days. NASA has billed the mission as “one of the most complex undertakings of engineering and human ingenuity in the history of deep space exploration,” a description that’s hard to argue against. It’s worth pointing out that Artemis III will also come in the wake of some truly exciting developments on the UAP (f.k.a. UFO) front.
Get a closer look at the suit at the core of NASA's latest feat here.
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