Prada and Axiom Space unveiled the Liquid Cooling and Ventilation Garment on Sunday, a body-hugging undersuit designed to regulate temperature and manage breathing for NASA astronauts during lunar surface operations.
The Liquid Cooling and Ventilation Garment will be worn inside the AxEMU spacesuit during Artemis IV moonwalks lasting up to eight hours
Credit: Axiom Space
Prada and Axiom Space unveiled the Liquid Cooling and Ventilation Garment on Sunday, a body-hugging undersuit designed to regulate temperature and manage breathing for NASA astronauts during lunar surface operations.
The garment, known as the LCVG, is engineered as the inner layer of Axiom Space's Extravehicular Mobility Unit spacesuit, called the AxEMU. It circulates cold water through a network of tubes routed across the body's major muscle groups, carrying metabolic heat away to the suit's portable life-support system, where it is expelled into space, the company said. A separate loop of tubes delivers fresh oxygen across an astronaut's face, washing away exhaled carbon dioxide before the gas routes back through a CO2 scrubber and recirculates. The LCVG also features a fully redundant cooling circuit, providing a backup if the primary loop fails.
Rather than threading tubes through mesh material as in earlier designs — a labor-intensive approach — Prada's engineers wove cooling-liquid channels directly into the fabric structure itself, a manufacturing advance that Space.com noted draws on the fashion house's expertise in engineered knitting and 3D modeling. Prada's knowledge of high-performance materials also supported the identification and sourcing of specialized fibers that allow the garment to be worn across long-duration missions, Axiom Space said.
"Every minute astronauts spend outside their vehicle, the LCVG is working to keep them safe," Russell Ralston, Axiom Space senior vice president of spacecraft development, said in a statement. "It manages their thermal environment, supports their breathing, and does it all while they're pushing their bodies to the limit."
The LCVG is intended for use during NASA's Artemis IV mission, the first Artemis mission slated to land astronauts on the lunar surface. At the lunar South Pole, where the mission is targeted, portions of the terrain alternate between direct exposure to the sun and deep shadow, producing temperature swings exceeding 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
The LCVG reveal follows an earlier phase of the Axiom Space-Prada collaboration. In 2024, the two companies unveiled the AxEMU's outer layer, with Prada's design work helping produce a suit exterior built to withstand the thermal and micrometeoroid environment of the lunar South Pole, Axiom Space said.
"By bringing together the best in both aerospace engineering as well as luxury craftsmanship and advanced product development, we have developed a garment that neither company could have created independently," Axiom Space CEO and President Jonathan Cirtain said in a statement.
Lorenzo Bertelli, Prada Group chief marketing officer and head of sustainability, said the company looked forward to continuing the collaboration "pushing boundaries and exploring new frontiers together."
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