Here’s every key spacesuit NASA astronauts have worn since the 1960s — and the new moon suit it just unveiled

• NASA unveiled the suit astronauts will wear during the 2025 Artemis III moon mission. 
• The new Extravehicular Mobility Unit spacesuit was developed by private company Axiom Space.
• NASA gave astronauts their first operational spacesuits in the early 1960s. 

Space may be the final frontier, but it’s wildly inaccessible and downright deadly to any plucky human without a great spacesuit.

Astronauts are scheduled to return to the moon for the first time in 50 years in 2025 with NASA’s Artemis III mission. The space agency just unveiled a new fit for the occasion, developed by private company Axiom Space. 

NASA hired Axiom to build its latest spacesuits in June 2022, after it spent years and millions trying to develop its own. In August 2021, the agency reported that despite spending $420 million since 2017, its own suits wouldn’t be ready for space before April 2025 “at the earliest.” 

Axiom’s new Extravehicular Mobility Unit leverages NASA’s own exploration version, introduced in 2019. 

But the very first operational spacesuits were introduced in the early 1960s to protect high-flying astronauts as they risk their lives in the name of space exploration.

From the silvery suits of the Mercury program to Elon Musk’s sleek Crew Dragon suits, here’s how astronauts’ spacesuits have evolved over six decades.