Moon-bound astronaut wearing Prada

Astronauts walking on the moon as part of NASA’s first human mission to the lunar South Pole will be wearing Prada, as part of a new venture unveiled this week.

Private space company Axiom Space teamed up with the Italian luxury brand to provide the surface suits and spacewalk systems for NASA’s Artemis 3 mission, which is planned for September 2026.

The external layer of the space suit, designed to reflect heat, is largely white, as it was on the suits worn by the Apollo astronauts who last walked on the moon more than 50 years ago.

But the update will have a few touches of grey and some red stripes similar to those seen on Italy’s Luna Rossa America’s Cup boat, which was also sponsored by Prada.

Matt Ondler, president of Axiom Space, told a press launch in Milan that making the suit had required “extreme engineering” and “fantastic manufacturing capability.”

“They will go in places that are incredibly hazardous, extreme environments,” he said.

“One of the missions that NASA wants to do is to try to find water craters at the South Pole. These are some of the coldest places in the universe. And so this suit has to be designed very cleverly.”

At the lunar South Pole, a land of mountains and deep craters, the sun hovers below or just above the horizon.