NASA revealed on June 1 that it had commissioned two private companies, Axiom Space and Collins Aerospace, to develop the next space suits for its astronauts. They will replace those used by astronauts for forty years. If all goes well, they should be worn in a few years on future trips to the Moon.
NASA wants to change its wardrobe
Axiom Space and Collins Aerospace have been entrusted with the development of the next outfits worn by astronauts. They will be used for future Artemis missions and spacewalks during their work on the International Space Station.
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Both companies are not unknown names in the space industry. Axiom Space already offers private space travel. Michael Suffredini, CEO of Axiom Space, welcomes ” It’s fantastic to have a partnership where you can take advantage of NASA’s years of experience and all the work they’ve done to bring the design to where it is today. We are happy, as a commercial company, to work with them to build a suit in the most economical way possible, so that we can both use it to meet our needs. “.
As for Collins Aerospace, it is a historical company: it was she who was behind the design of the suit used by the astronauts of the Apollo program during the first moon landing. The North Carolina-based company will team up with two other big names in the aerospace industry, ILC Dover and Oceaneering, to work on the outfit. ” We look forward to returning to the Moon and continuing our 50-year legacy of producing spacewalking suits for NASA. And this from the Apollo program to the International Space Station today » detailed Patty Stoll, President Space Systems at ILC Dover.
The duration of the contracts extends until 2034. Their amount has not yet been revealed, but the project has a ceiling of 3.5 billion dollars.
Thinking about combinations in all its forms
Each partner has invested part of their money in the design of these new suits. They will have to meet the technical requirements established by NASA experts. Axiom Space and Collins Aerospace will be responsible for the design, maintenance and certification of the spacesuits.
” Our business partners will help achieve our human exploration goals “, has declared Mark Kirasich, Deputy Associate Administrator in NASA’s Artemis Program Development Division. ” We look forward to using these services for NASA’s continued presence in low Earth orbit and for our next accomplishment: the return of American astronauts to the Moon. We are confident that our collaboration with industry and leveraging NASA’s expertise, gained over more than 60 years of space exploration, will enable us to achieve these goals together.. »
The outfits will have to be versatile and allow the astronauts to accomplish different tasks in space ranging from landing on the moon to exits in orbit. Different criteria must be taken into account depending on the use cases. It’s up to the two companies whether they want to develop a single combination model or offer two distinct ones.
Axiom Space and Collins Aerospace plan to present a first model that meets the expectations of NASA experts by 2025, the year in which the Artemis 3 mission is scheduled, which will land humans on the Moon for the first time since 1972.