NASA has unveiled a new spacesuit for astronauts of the lunar mission “Artemis”

NASA has revealed the spacesuits that astronauts will wear on the Moon for the upcoming Artemis lunar missions, including the first lunar suit for a woman.

“We haven’t had a new suit since the suits we designed for the Space Shuttle and those suits are currently in use on the space station, so for 40 years we’ve been using the same suit based on this technology.” , – he said. Vanessa Veach at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, at a press conference.

The new suit, built by private company Axiom Space for NASA, is designed to withstand the harsh conditions of the moon’s south pole, where temperatures average around -13°C (9°F) but can drop hundreds of degrees below. in craters in permanent shadow.

It will also have improved mobility over previous suits, weighing 55kg, about 25kg lighter than the suits worn by the Apollo astronauts, and with more custom joints for a greater range of motion. Because the suit has so many hinges, it can’t be easily put on and off – astronauts will need to crawl through a hatch at the back of the suit to enter.

The suit also features a panel of lights above the helmet for working with instruments and scientific instruments in low light, as well as an HD camera so people on Earth can watch what the astronauts are doing.

Axiom has hired a costume designer from an Apple TV sci-fi series. For all mankind for the appearance of the suit, but there will be one difference between the exposed suit and the real one: all black sections will be white to reflect heat and keep the astronauts at the right temperature.

If all goes according to schedule, NASA’s Artemis 3 mission will land the first women and non-white astronauts on the moon in 2025. Historically, space exploration, especially on the Moon, has been done almost exclusively by white men. Until last year, for example, the specific radiation risk for women had never been studied.