Moon-Bound astronauts will soon be wearing Prada

Axiom Space, a Houston-based aerospace company, has partnered with Italian fashion giant Prada to design spacesuits for NASA's Artemis missions. The two companies revealed their latest creation on June 7 at a Prada store in New York: a sleek inner garment that keeps astronauts cool and breathing easy on the lunar surface.

This new piece is called the Liquid Cooling and Ventilation Garment, or LCVG. It's worn underneath the main spacesuit, known as the AxEMU (Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit). The garment has built-in channels that hold small tubes carrying cooling liquid, throughout the suit to regulate temperature.

Larger tubes carry air over the astronaut's face and around the body, managing carbon dioxide as they exhale and delivering fresh oxygen as they inhale. Axiom says the LCVG is built to keep astronauts protected during spacewalks lasting up to eight hours.

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Prada Group's chief marketing officer, Lorenzo Bertelli, explained that the company offered its expertise in soft goods, along with materials like titanium and composites, and pointed to its vertical integration, controlling everything from raw material sourcing to the finished product.

These new suits represent a huge leap from the ones worn during the Apollo missions over 50 years ago. They're being designed with the lunar south pole in mind, a region far colder and more challenging than anywhere previous astronauts have explored. Axiom executives say they remain confident the AxEMU will be ready in time for the Artemis 4 moon landing, currently planned for 2028. 

Before the suits' lunar debut, there's still more testing ahead, including underwater simulations and a possible test aboard the International Space Station.