The next time American astronauts step onto the moon, they’ll be clad in Prada spacesuits – featuring advanced technology and the brand’s signature design elements.
Axiom Space and Prada recently unveiled the Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit (AxEMU) spacesuit at the International Astronautical Congress in Milan, Italy. NASA astronauts are expected to wear their new Prada uniforms during the Artemis III mission – the first manned trip to the moon since December 1972.
“Our elite teams have redefined spacesuit development, establishing new pathways to innovative solutions and applying a state-of-the-art design approach for the AxEMU,” Matt Ondler, Axiom Space President, said in a statement. “ The Axiom Space-Prada partnership has set a new foundational model for cross-industry collaboration, further expanding what’s possible in commercial space.”
The AxEMU comes with a Prada-appropriate, eye-popping price tag. NASA awarded Axiom a $228 million contract to design the spacesuits as part of a larger $1.3 billion deal to develop technology for the Artemis III mission. Only four astronauts are going on this voyage, though Russell Ralston, Axiom’s Executive Vice President of Extravehicular Activity, noted that the suits could be reused for future missions, bringing the cost down with time.
The new suits are intended to marry practicality with style – while the designer’s logo is not present anywhere in the AxEMU design, the commander suit’s red piping is reminiscent of Prada’s ready-to-wear apparel line, Linea Rossa. The designs are one-size-fits-all and come equipped with biometric monitoring capabilities, an HD camera, and 4G/LTE communications. The suits are designed with enhanced protection compared to their Apollo counterparts, incorporating features specifically needed for exploring the moon’s permanently shadowed regions in the lunar south pole.
Even smaller details reflect these dual mandates: the AxEMU features gray patches at the elbows and knees to protect the suits from damage while astronauts traverse the lunar surface.
“While the knee and elbow pads are designed to enable flexibility and decrease impacts on the suit and the astronaut, the color gray is an aesthetic design choice,” said Ralston, according to TIME.“These pads will include added insulation and robustness against lunar dust.”
Prada initiated the partnership with Axiom “as a sort of joke,” said Lorenzo Bertelli, the chief marketing officer of Prada, according to the New York Times. As discussions progressed, however, it became apparent that the collaboration was a very real possibility.
“Our group has disrupted a lot in the past,” said Bertelli, according to The Times. “Maybe this is another opportunity where we could disrupt a bit.”
While Axiom was initially “surprised,” Ralston told The Times that it became apparent that a partnership “actually makes a lot of sense, because a spacesuit is a unique thing. It’s a symbol. It’s an icon of our society.”
“It blends science and engineering but also art, all crafted around the human body,” Ralston added. “The backpack is very rigid, but the suit portion has to be flexible. It has to accommodate men and women of all different sizes. It has to move. It has to look good.”