NASA Inspector fears new spacesuits won’t be ready for Moon landing

The NASA Office of Inspector General, the aerospace agency’s auditor, fears that work on next-generation spacesuits won’t finish in time to use them for the planned Artemis III Moon landing mission in 2028.

In a report [PDF] published on Monday, the Inspector General points out that NASA kicked off its quest for next-gen spacesuits with 2022’s Exploration Extravehicular Activity Services (xEVAS) program, which called for private suppliers to develop two suits: one to handle microgravity at the International Space Station (ISS) and another to wear on the moon.

NASA allocated $3.1 billion to the contracts and selected Axiom Space and Collins Aerospace to work on the project. The latter dropped out in 2024 after deciding it couldn’t hit the required deadlines.

The report says NASA’s delivery dates “were overly optimistic and ultimately proved unachievable” and warns that past experience of spacesuit development suggests Axiom ...