How do you keep astronauts cool on a world where temperatures swing from a blistering 127°C to a bone-chilling -173°C? The answer, it turns out, involves a high-tech onesie from one of the world’s most iconic fashion houses. Prada, the Italian luxury brand best known for leather handbags and runway shows, has teamed up with Axiom Space to design the liquid cooling garment that will keep NASA’s Artemis astronauts comfortable—and alive—during their moonwalks.
This isn’t just a PR stunt. The new spacesuit, officially called the Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit (AxEMU), represents a critical piece of engineering for humanity’s return to the lunar surface, planned for the Artemis III mission, currently slated for late 2025 (though most experts expect a delay into 2026). The Prada-designed inner layer, a snug-fitting onesie crisscrossed with flexible tubing, is the unsung hero that will manage the climate inside the suit. Without it, astronauts would either bake in the sun or freeze in the shadows.
Why the Moon Demands a New Kind of Spacesuit
The Moon is a place of extremes. During the two-week-long lunar day, direct sunlight heats the surface to over 120°C—hot enough to melt solder. But in the shadows of craters or during the equally long lunar night, temperatures plunge to -173°C. An astronaut walking on the surface needs a portable life support system that can handle both ends of that spectrum in a matter of steps.
Apollo-era suits relied on sublimation cooling and simple water-cooled garments, but those suits were heavy, bulky, and used outdated materials. The Artemis suits must be lighter, more flexible, and able to withstand far longer durations on the surface—up to eight hours per spacewalk, compared to the Apollo missions’ typical three to four hours. Lunar dust, a fine, abrasive powder that clings to everything, was a nightmare for Apollo crews and remains a top concern for modern engineers. It can clog radiators and scrub heat away in unintended ways.
“The thermal environment on the Moon is one of the most challenging we’ve ever designed for,” says Russell Ralston, Axiom Space’s Extravehicular Activity (EVA) lead. “We needed a garment that could actively cool astronauts during exertion and retain heat when they’re resting in shadow. Prada’s expertise in high-performance textiles and ergonomic design helped us crack that code.”
The AxEMU suit itself is a marvel of modern engineering. It features an outer shell that’s white to reflect sunlight, integrated cameras and lights, and a rotating helmet for better visibility. But the inner layer—the one Prada worked on—is what makes the whole system work. It’s a liquid cooling and ventilation garment (LCVG) that circulates chilled water through a network of tubes woven into the fabric, pulling heat away from the astronaut’s skin. A small pump and heat exchanger in the backpack regulate the temperature, while a ventilation system removes humidity and CO₂.
Prada’s Fashion Meets Space Engineering
It might seem odd that a luxury fashion house is involved in spacesuit design, but Prada has a long history of working with advanced materials and ergonomics. The company’s research into lightweight, breathable fabrics for sportswear and outerwear translated surprisingly well to the challenges of a lunar garment. Prada engineers focused not just on thermal performance, but also on fit and mobility. A spacesuit is no good if it restricts movement or causes chafing during an eight-hour moonwalk.
“Our goal was to create a second skin that feels natural to the astronaut,” says Lorenzo Bertelli, Prada’s head of corporate social responsibility and a key liaison on the project. “We used 3D body scans of the astronauts to optimize the pattern and seams, reducing pressure points. We also selected a special knit that wicks moisture and resists microbial growth—important for long-duration missions.”
In October 2024, Axiom Space released the first images of the final AxEMU design, showcasing Prada’s contributions. The visible gray-and-white onesie features stylized lines and geometric patterns, but it’s purely functional: the patterns help align the tubing and sensors. The suit itself is a stark departure from the puffy “Michelin man” look of the Apollo era—it’s sleek, almost like something out of a sci-fi film. And yes, it has a small Prada logo stitched near the cuff.
But fashion isn’t the point here; survival is. The cooling garment must be able to handle heat loads of up to 500 watts during strenuous activity—like climbing a ladder or collecting rock samples. For comparison, a person at rest generates about 100 watts of heat. During a moonwalk, astronauts will be moving, bending, and lifting for hours. The LCVG has to keep up.
How the Cooling System Works
Think of the Prada-cooling onesie as the radiator inside a car. Water is pumped through the tubing at a controlled rate, absorbing body heat as it travels across the chest, back, arms, and legs. The warmed water returns to the backpack where a sublimator (or in later versions, a heat pump) expels the heat into space. A separate valve allows astronauts to adjust the cooling rate, so they can crank it up during a hard climb and dial it down when standing still.
The ventilation side is equally critical. A fan pulls air through the suit, removing sweat and CO₂, and then passes it through a scrubber before recirculating. The suit operates at a slightly higher pressure than the lunar vacuum—about 4.3 psi—which means it doesn’t require a lengthy pre-breathe period like the International Space Station suits do. This saves precious time during moonwalks.
Prada’s contribution helped optimize the placement of the tubing to avoid restricting joint movement. The onesie also includes integrated sensors that monitor skin temperature and heart rate, feeding data back to the ground team at Johnson Space Center in Houston. If an astronaut starts overheating, Mission Control can adjust the cooling remotely.
“The biggest breakthrough was integrating the cooling channels into a single, seamless garment that could be donned in minutes,” says Dr. Jessica Vos, a thermal engineer at NASA’s Johnson Space Center who has been consulting on the project. “Previous designs had separate vests and pants with bulky connectors. Prada’s pattern-cutting expertise allowed us to eliminate those weak points, making the suit more reliable and more comfortable.”
The suit also has to endure the Moon’s abrasive dust. The outer layer is treated with a special coating that repels particles, and the cooling garment sits beneath a protective mesh that prevents dust from clogging the tubing. Every seam is sealed and tested for lunar vacuum conditions. During the Artemis III mission, the first woman and the next man will wear these suits to explore the lunar south pole, where permanently shadowed craters may hold water ice—and where temperatures can drop even lower than the Moon’s average.
What This Means for Lunar Exploration and Beyond
The Prada-Axiom collaboration is more than a one-off gimmick. It signals a new era where commercial partners bring specialized expertise to space exploration. NASA’s Artemis program aims to establish a permanent human presence on the Moon, including a base camp and regular surface excursions. That means astronauts will need multiple suits for different tasks—exploration, construction, maintenance. Each suit will have to be modular, repairable, and adaptable to different body sizes (the AxEMU is designed to accommodate 99% of the US male and female populations).
The cooling technology developed for Artemis could also find applications on Earth. Similar liquid cooling garments are already used by athletes, firefighters, and workers in extreme environments. The fabrics and sensors Prada has refined could trickle down into high-end outdoor gear or even medical devices for patients with temperature regulation issues. And of course, the lessons learned will inform the suits for NASA’s eventual Mars missions, where astronauts will face similar thermal challenges on a planet with a thin atmosphere and frequent dust storms.
“We’re not just designing a suit for one mission,” says Axiom’s Ralston. “We’re building a platform that will evolve over decades. The cooling system we have today will be upgraded with better heat pumps and even smarter controls. Prada helped us set the standard for comfort and performance that future lunar explorers will take for granted.”
The Artemis III mission is still on the horizon, but the suits are already being tested at NASA’s Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory in Houston and in vacuum chambers that simulate the Moon’s temperature extremes. Astronauts have tried on the onesie and given feedback on fit and flexibility. Early reports are positive—the Prada garment fits like a second skin, with no pinching or restriction.
When the first Artemis astronauts step onto the Moon, they will be wearing history. The iconic white suits with the red trim and the Prada-designed inner layer will represent a fusion of high fashion and raw engineering—a reminder that exploring new worlds requires not just courage and technology, but also a little bit of style. And most importantly, they’ll stay cool under pressure, literally and figuratively, thanks to a onesie that was born on the runways of Milan and refined for the desolate beauty of the lunar landscape.
