Prada and Axiom Space unveil the cooling undersuit astronauts will wear on the Moon

By: Anton Kratiuk | today, 10:30

NASA's next Moon walkers will have Prada stitching next to their skin. On June 7, Axiom Space and the Italian fashion house unveiled the Liquid Cooling and Ventilation Garment — the LCVG — a body-hugging inner layer for the AxEMU spacesuit that will carry astronauts to the lunar south pole during Artemis IV, currently targeted for early 2028. It would be the first crewed lunar landing since Apollo 17 in 1972, and the first to include a woman on the surface.

The engineering inside

The LCVG solves one of spacewalking's oldest problems: heat. The human body generates enormous amounts of it during physical exertion, and in the vacuum of space there's nowhere for it to go. The garment runs a network of water-circulating tubes along the body's major muscle groups, pulling excess heat away and routing it to the suit's life-support backpack, which radiates it into space.

Per the Axiom Space official announcement, the system is rated for eight-hour surface excursions. A full backup cooling loop runs in parallel — if the primary pump or tubing fails, the redundant circuit takes over without interrupting the mission. That redundancy matters on the Moon's south pole, where temperatures can swing to lethal extremes and permanently shadowed craters sit just minutes away.

A second set of tubes handles ventilation: fresh oxygen is delivered directly to the helmet area while exhaled carbon dioxide is drawn away, filtered, and recirculated. Without that forced airflow, CO₂ would pool around the astronaut's head — a quiet and serious danger.

Where Prada fits in

Prada's contribution goes well beyond branding. The Milan house applied its expertise in 3D modeling, patternmaking, and advanced sewing techniques to engineer fibers that survive repeated use, resist mechanical wear, and hold up against prolonged contact with sweat. As Fox Business reporting notes, the suit is sized to fit astronauts from the 1st to the 99th percentile — male and female — a design challenge that maps closely to haute couture's obsession with fit.

Axiom Space, headquartered in Houston, was awarded $228 million by NASA in 2022 to develop the next generation of spacesuits for the agency. The Prada partnership, announced in 2024, signals a broader shift: commercial aerospace is increasingly turning to industries outside its traditional supply chain to solve problems that pure engineering hasn't cracked.

What comes next

The LCVG is the inner skeleton of the AxEMU system. The outer shell — reflecting sunlight and blocking micrometeorites — works in tandem with it. Artemis III, an uncrewed test mission, is scheduled ahead of the IV landing. If the timeline holds, the Prada-stitched cooling layer will be doing real work on the lunar surface within two years.