It’s like Fashion Week … for house, as NASA unveils the freshly designed spacesuits its astronauts might be rocking on the moon.
Axiom Space designed the brand new look, and NASA proudly flaunted it Wednesday on the Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX — the glossy new fits had been primarily designed for the Artemis lunar missions scheduled for 2025.
The new go well with known as Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit, or AxEMU, and it is far more versatile than the outdated cumbersome fits worn for over 50 years — and they are often worn by women and men. Big diff from the Apollo missions of the ’60s and ’70s.
Fun reality: NASA says the brand new fits would match at the least 90% of the oldsters within the U.S.
You’ll recall, NASA initially pulled the plug on the primary all-female spacewalk again in 2019 … all as a result of the prevailing fits could not match the two ladies heading to house.
Although they ultimately did make the spacewalk in October 2019, it was clear the house company wanted a brand new imaginative and prescient for its spacesuits.
We’ve seen your tweets about spacesuit availability for Friday’s spacewalk. To make clear, now we have greater than 1 medium measurement spacesuit torso aboard, however to remain on schedule with @Space_Station upgrades, it’s safer & sooner to alter spacewalker assignments than reconfigure spacesuits. pic.twitter.com/tPisBHaF2p
— NASA (@NASA) March 26, 2019
@NASA
NASA enlisted Axiom final 12 months to repair the issue, they usually sound thrilled with the top consequence.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson says, “Axiom’s subsequent era spacesuits is not going to solely allow the primary lady to stroll on the Moon, however they may even open alternatives for extra individuals to discover and conduct science on the Moon than ever earlier than.”
BTW, do not get used to that black and orange shade sample … Axiom famous that is simply to indicate off its emblem. The closing model will doubtless be all-white to mirror the extraordinary warmth astronauts are uncovered to in house.