A new generation of lunar spacesuits is ready for the big reveal.
Houston-based Axiom Space will be showing off lunar spacesuit prototypes for the Artemis missions to the Moon during a live event on Wednesday (March 15) starting at 10:30 AM EST (1430 GMT). You can watch the webcast here on Space.com, via NASA Television.
Axiom Space will build the spacesuits for Artemis 3, which will land at the moon’s south pole with astronauts on board in December 2025. The company was selected for this mission, the first to put humans on the moon since 1972, from a larger NASA contract. for the spacesuit on September 7, 2022.
Related: Axiom Space is developing internal spacesuits in preparation for future stations
NASA has selected Axiom and a team led by Collins Aerospace to develop and build spacesuits for future missions to the Moon and the International Space Station in June 2022. Funds will be provided through “mission orders” totaling, across all contracts, $3.5 billion through 2034.
Artemis 3’s base prize value is $228.5 million and is the first such mission order in the statement. Axiom has never made spacesuits for NASA before, but the company is an agency partner on other projects; For example, Axiom’s Ax-1 mission made the first commercial manned mission to the International Space Station in 2022 aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon, and its Ax-2 will launch later this year.
In the long term, Axiom plans to build a mall on the International Space Station that will include a movie studio. Eventually, the Axiom modules will detach from the ISS and become an independent private space station in low Earth orbit.
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“Disclosure activities were planned during observations from NASA and Axiom space experts, a suit demonstration, as well as question-and-answer sessions with the media and students,” NASA said on March 8. statement (Opens in a new tab) About the March 15th event.
Event participants will include:
- Bob Cabana, Associate Administrator, NASA
- Vanessa Witchey, director of the NASA Johnson Space Center
- Lara Kearney, director of the Extravehicular Activity and Human Surface Mobility Program, NASA Johnson
- Kate Robbins, NASA astronaut
- Michael Suffredini, President and CEO, Axiom Space
- Mark Greeley, Extravehicular Activity Program Manager, Axiom Space
- Russell Ralston, EVA Program Deputy Director, Axiom Space
- Peggy Whitson, Axiom 2 Leader, Axiom Space
- John Schoffner, Axiom 2 pilot, Axiom Space
Elizabeth Howell is co-author of “Why am I taller (Opens in a new tab)? (ECW Press, 2022; with Canadian astronaut Dave Williams), a book on space medicine. Follow her on Twitter @employee (Opens in a new tab). Follow us on Twitter @employee (Opens in a new tab) or Facebook (Opens in a new tab).