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The US space agency NASA is dressing its astronauts in new clothes for future moon landings. NASA, together with the American company Axiom Space, presented a prototype of the new spacesuits at an event in Houston, Texas, on Wednesday. At the end of the summer, Axiom Space will provide NASA with an initial set of suits for training purposes.

The new suits, which took about a decade to develop – including a helmet, visor, boots and a sort of backpack – offer better protection against the harsh conditions of space and more flexibility for the astronauts than the previous ones. For example, the astronauts would be better off bending or crouching to pick up rocks from the lunar surface. Chief Engineer Jim Stein even demonstrated lunges and squats while wearing the suit at the event.

Cameras and lights are attached to the helmet, and the so-called backpack contains a life support system that has been described as something of a “mix of a very fancy scuba tank and air conditioning”. The prototype space suit is black, with orange, blue and white trim. However, to protect the astronauts from extreme temperatures on the moon, the last spacesuits will be white.

The spacesuits that NASA astronauts wear today when aboard the ISS were introduced some 40 years ago, back then for the space shuttles. Incidents of water build-up in helmets during field operations have been a constant concern. German astronaut Matthias Maurer, among others, was hit. The development of new spacesuits had been planned for a long time, but was delayed due to various problems. NASA had commissioned the American company Collins Aerospace to develop new spacesuits for the ISS.

Axiom Space’s new suits will be used primarily for the “Artemis” mission. Named after the Greek goddess of the moon, the program aims to land a woman and a non-white person on the moon for the first time, and flights to Mars are also planned in the more distant future. The moon landing is scheduled for 2025. (sda/dpa)