Commercial aerospace company Axiom Space and luxury fashion house Prada showcased the innermost layer of NASA’s next-generation lunar spacesuit.
It is called the Liquid Cooling and Ventilation Garment (LCVG) and will be worn inside the Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit (AxEMU) spacesuit.
Prada is going to the moon When astronauts step onto the lunar South Pole during NASA’s upcoming Artemis IV mission, the environment will be brutal.
“Every minute astronauts spend outside their vehicle, the LCVG is working to keep them safe,” said Russell Ralston, Axiom Space Senior Vice President of Spacecraft Development.
The exterior layer is built to stop micrometeoroids and extreme radiation; the inner layer handles the delicate physics of human comfort.
The devil wears Prada. And soon, so will the astronauts heading to the moon. Commercial aerospace company Axiom Space and luxury fashion house Prada showcased the innermost layer of NASA’s next-generation lunar spacesuit. It is called the Liquid Cooling and Ventilation Garment (LCVG) and will be worn inside the Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit (AxEMU) spacesuit. The garment is the first line of defense for astronauts exploring the moon’s surface for the first time in over half a century.
“The future of space exploration will not be built by any one entity alone, and our partnership with Prada is proof of that,” said Dr. Jonathan Cirtain, Axiom Space CEO and President. “By bringing together the best in both aerospace engineering as well as luxury craftmanship and advanced product development, we have developed a garment that neither company could have created independently, and that is exactly the kind of cross-industry thinking that will define the next era of human spaceflight,” Cirtain added. Prada is going to the moon When astronauts step onto the lunar South Pole during NASA’s upcoming Artemis IV mission, the environment will be brutal. Temperatures switch violently between blistering heat in direct sunlight and absolute freezing cold in deep shadow. To survive outside a spacecraft for up to eight hours, the human body needs an artificial atmosphere.
Spacewalks are physically grueling missions in which astronauts generate intense body heat that cannot dissipate naturally in the vacuum of space. Without intervention, crew members would rapidly overheat while moving and exploring. To prevent this, the LCVG serves as a wearable radiator, using an integrated network of chilled-water tubes to continuously absorb and dissipate excess body heat. Using Prada’s expertise in engineered knitting, advanced 3D modeling, and high-performance materials, the collaboration produced a next-generation garment optimized for comfort during spacewalks lasting up to eight hours. Furthermore, Prada’s knowledge of specialized fibers ensured that the garment was durable enough to be worn repeatedly over the long duration of lunar missions. Woven directly into the specialized fibers is a complex web of flexible tubes. Chilled water constantly flows through these channels, routing across the body’s major muscle groups to absorb metabolic heat and pump it away to the suit’s backpack life-support system.
Cooling system In an industry first for an inner spacesuit layer, the LCVG features a fully redundant backup cooling loop that instantly takes over if the primary system fails on the lunar surface. The garment also pulls double duty by managing respiration, using a separate ventilation loop to gently blow fresh oxygen across the astronaut’s face while simultaneously vacuuming away exhaled carbon dioxide for scrubbing and recirculation. “Every minute astronauts spend outside their vehicle, the LCVG is working to keep them safe,” said Russell Ralston, Axiom Space Senior Vice President of Spacecraft Development. “It manages their thermal environment, supports their breathing, and does it all while they’re pushing their bodies to the limit. The work we have done with Prada has taken that capability to a level we could not have achieved alone,” Ralston added.
Moving the collaboration inward was a natural step for the two companies. In 2024, they showcased the heavy, protective white outer shell of the Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit (AxEMU). The exterior layer is built to stop micrometeoroids and extreme radiation; the inner layer handles the delicate physics of human comfort.
