A lunar spacesuit that Italian luxury fashion house Prada helped to design was unveiled at the world’s largest space conference in Milan, Italy, on Wednesday. It will be worn by Nasa astronauts during the Artemis 3 mission, the first American crewed flight to the surface since the Apollo era.
A prototype of the AxEMU suit, which is being developed by American space infrastructure company Axiom Space in partnership with Prada, was displayed at a press conference held at the International Astronautical Congress. Humans have not been to the Moon since the last Apollo flight in 1972, but Nasa’s Artemis 3 mission is set to mark mankind's return to the lunar surface in 2026. The mission will bring the first woman and the first person of colour to walk on the Moon.
Lorenzo Bertelli, chief marketing officer at Prada Group, said the suit was designed to be functional from an engineering perspective. "It was a nice exercise for our design team to really start from the functional point of view and then understand how to also make it look good," he said.
Sleek and modern
The new spacesuit has a futuristic aesthetic, with a clean white exterior to reflect the Sun's heat, combined with red accents that give it a modern, high-tech look. Russell Ralston, vice president of extravehicular activity at Axiom Space, said the suit is intended to provide astronauts with an improved version of the A7L suits that were worn in the Apollo era.
The next-generation suit is lighter than the bulky 82kg A7L ones and allows for more mobility. "There's a lot more mobility in the suit this time – that's one of the things that we've really worked to refine," said Mr Ralston.
Lunar dust was also a persistent issue with the A7L spacesuits. The fine, abrasive particles stuck to the suits, worked their way into seams and zips and caused significant wear and tear.
"That was an absolutely a major design factor in designing the outer layer," said Mr Ralston. "We have a dust lab at Axiom where we do some testing to refine the techniques that we have."
Designed for men and women
The A7L spacesuits were not designed with women in mind, because at that time only men were part of Nasa's astronaut corps. With the AxEMU suit, Mr Ralston said, "gender does not play a role" in the design as it can be tailored to any person, regardless of gender and size.
"We can fit any individual inside the suit and tailor the suit to them. We can swap out different components and then those can be adjusted," he said.
Can be used by private astronauts
Apart from the Artemis 3 mission, the new suit can also be used on a commercial space station that Axiom Space is developing for low-Earth orbit. The station will host government and private astronauts that plan on doing spacewalks.
Mr Bertelli said Prada was just "at the beginning" of exploring opportunities that are available in the space sector. "Today anyone can go to space, at least to the ISS (International Space Station), and it's going to be the same for the Moon," he said. "The problem is that the ticket price is too high, but this sector will scale up and the price will go down, and so it will be more accessible."
