Today, NASA announced that two private companies, Axiom Space and Collins Aerospace, will develop the next-generation space suits that future astronauts will wear to carry out space launches and eventually traverse the surface of the moon. It is a bold new direction for the development of space suits at NASA, with the agency handing over the job to the private sector after years of struggling to develop a new suit of its own.
These new space suits will play a critical role in NASA’s Artemis program, the agency’s flagship initiative to send humans back to the lunar surface. NASA is currently aiming to land the first Artemis astronauts on the moon in 2025, with a one-year delay from the 2024 deadline originally set by the Trump administration. When astronauts land, NASA wants them to be equipped with appropriate space suits that they can use to explore the Earth’s terrain.
However, there are many doubts that NASA can meet the 2025 deadline, as there is still a lot of work to be done on the hardware and vehicles needed to get the first landing. But one of the main obstacles has turned out to be the development of the space suit. Several audits have revealed that NASA’s quest to create next-generation suits has been inefficient, has faced numerous technical challenges, and is many years behind schedule. Now, after 15 years of struggling to make these new suits, the agency is taking over the commercial industry. Collins Aerospace has a history with the construction of space suits, as it helped create the current suits used by NASA, while Axiom Space is a relatively new company dedicated to creating private space stations.
One of the main attractions has been the development of the space suit
NASA announced that the total value of the contracts is $ 3.5 billion, although the space agency did not say the individual contract values of each company. The $ 3.5 billion roof covers the life of the contracts, which includes both partial development costs and future purchases of the suits for NASA. However, once the costumes are complete, the companies will own them and have the option to use them for other non-NASA purposes.
The dresses are designed to suit a wide range of body types, from the 5th percentile female to the 95th percentile male. The goal is for the space suits to be ready for use by astronauts in Artemis III, the third launch of NASA’s new rocket, the space launch system, and the current target for the first landing. Artemis also strives to land the first woman and the first person of color on the moon. “So having a dress that is the right size and tailored for her, that doesn’t look like a spaceship that looks like a sturdy set of extreme sports outerwear, that should be the goal,” Dan Burbank said. former astronaut and senior. said a technology colleague from Collins Aerospace during a press conference.
However, the new costumes developed by these companies are not just for lunar exploration. NASA wants a new line of suits that are far more versatile than their predecessors to be used by Artemis astronauts as they explore the moon and to replace the aging suits of the International Space Station.
For the past four decades, NASA astronauts have relied on the same basic space suit design to carry out space launch on the ISS. Called EMU, for the Extravehicular Mobility Unit, the suit made its debut during the space shuttle era, and ISS astronauts use an “improved” version to get out of the lab and make improvements and repairs to the space shuttle. outside the station. However, EMUs have not been updated in decades and are not intended to be used for lunar spacewalks. In addition, they are limited in size.
In 2019, a prototype of NASA’s xEMU suit was unveiled, appearing in white, red and blue in the middle. Photo by Joel Kowsky / NASA via Getty Images
But the transition to a new space suit has been difficult for NASA. The agency began work on new space suits in 2007 and has since invested a total of $ 420 million in space suit development. These efforts eventually culminated in a new suit called xEMU, a prototype of which was unveiled in 2019. At the time of launch, NASA was hoping to have two suits ready to be tested on the space station before send them to the lunar surface. the 2024 landing.
But in August, an audit by NASA’s Office of the Inspector General found that the development of NASA’s new suits was significantly delayed due to lack of money, technical problems and problems associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. Ultimately, the report stated that the xEMU would not be ready for the Trump administration’s 2024 deadline. (A few months later, NASA moved the deadline to 2025.) The audit also noted that NASA would likely spend $ 1 billion in total space spacecraft development when the first flight suits were ready, which it would be “April 2025 as soon as possible.” ”
“We were in a great place for the transition”
Meanwhile, in April 2021, NASA made a request for information from private companies for new space suit designs that could be used for Artemis missions. At the time, NASA said it would still continue to develop xEMU internally, but the measure indicated the agency could rely on commercial suits. “NASA has a responsibility with taxpayers and future explorers to re-examine its infrastructure as needed to reduce costs and improve performance,” the agency wrote when announcing the news.
Now, NASA is putting all its expectations on Collins Aerospace and Axiom Space. The space agency said its engineers will continue testing at xEMU until the end of the year, but will eventually shift the focus and provide information to commercial companies as they move forward. In addition, the data and research that NASA gathered during the development of xEMU will be made available to both companies.
As for the ability of companies to meet the 2025 deadline, this will be developed over the next few years. Collins Aerospace unveiled a prototype lunar suit in 2019, and today Burbank said the company has already spent years developing a suit. As for Axiom Space, the company’s CEO Mike Suffredini also said that costume development began a few years ago, as the company has long been considering making dresses for its future stations. space. “We have a number of clients who would already like to take a space walk,” Suffredini said. “And we had planned to build a dress as part of our program.”
However, 2025 is just a few years away. NASA says it is confident in the transition of space suit tasks at this time, stating that existing xEMU research will help “reduce risk” and speed things up. “We were in a great place for the transition, just because of the maturity that xEMU was at the time,” Lara Kearney, manager of NASA’s Human Surface Extravehicular Activity and Mobility Program, said during the conference. . “And I think getting these guys out first allows them to run.”
In addition, there are a number of milestones that NASA and its business partners must meet in order for it to work in 2025, including the launch of the agency’s new deep-space rocket for the first time and the completion of the human lunar terrifiers to take people to the moon. surface. Space suits are just a very complex piece of the puzzle that NASA has to solve to get back to the moon.
Correction June 1, 19:53 ET: An earlier version of this story said that the values of individual contracts would be revealed at the end of the month, according to information received during a NASA press conference. NASA later clarified that this information was inaccurate and the information has been deleted.