Spacesuit program delays warned

NASA’s watchdog says the spacesuits planned for future Moon missions and International Space Station spacewalks could slip to 2031, years past NASA’s current Artemis schedule. (oig.nasa.gov) A spacesuit is a personal spacecraft: it supplies oxygen, removes heat, and shields astronauts from vacuum, dust, and extreme temperatures during spacewalks and lunar surface work. NASA’s Office of Inspector General said the agency’s current station suits were designed more than 50 years ago, while the new lunar and station suits are still unfinished after nearly two decades of effort. (oig.nasa.gov) NASA switched to a commercial model in May 2022, awarding Exploration Extravehicular Activity Services contracts to Axiom Space and Collins Aerospace with a combined maximum value of $3.1 billion. Under that setup, NASA buys “spacewalking services” from contractors instead of owning the suits outright. (oig.nasa.gov) The competition shrank in 2024, when NASA and Collins agreed to remove Collins’ task orders after the company could not meet the International Space Station demonstration schedule. The inspector general said NASA had already spent $37 million on Collins’ effort and was left relying on Axiom for both lunar and microgravity suits. (oig.nasa.gov) The new audit said NASA’s original targets — a lunar suit demonstration in 2025 and a microgravity suit demonstration in 2026 — were “overly optimistic and unrealistic.” Axiom is now planning demonstration readiness in late 2027, and the inspector general said a schedule based on historical testing averages would push those demonstrations to 2031. (oig.nasa.gov) That schedule matters because NASA’s Artemis plan now points to a crewed Artemis III mission in 2027 and a lunar landing on Artemis IV in early 2028. The inspector general said a 2031 suit demonstration would miss both the 2028 lunar target and the station’s planned 2030 decommissioning window. (nasa.gov) (gao.gov) (oig.nasa.gov) The watchdog tied part of that risk to Collins twice over. Collins exited the new-suit competition in 2024, and a separate September 2025 inspector general report said Collins, as NASA’s maintenance contractor for existing station suits, had struggled with life-support component deliveries, budgets, and quality. (oig.nasa.gov) Those older International Space Station suits, known as Extravehicular Mobility Units, are still the hardware astronauts wear outside the station today. The 2025 audit said their aging design has contributed to water-in-helmet incidents, thermal-control problems, and astronaut injuries, while the contract supporting them had grown from $324 million in 2010 to $1.5 billion through 2027 as of July 2025. (oig.nasa.gov) NASA has been here before. In August 2021, the inspector general said NASA had spent $420 million on next-generation suit development and still faced major challenges meeting a November 2024 goal for its first two flight-ready suits. (oig.nasa.gov) NASA and Axiom have pushed back on the bleakest timeline. NASA told reporters this week it still expects astronauts to reach the lunar surface in 2028, and Axiom said it remains focused on delivering its AxEMU suit for Artemis under the agency’s contract. (yahoo.com) (nasa.gov) For now, the audit leaves NASA with one supplier, one aging station-suit fleet, and little slack in a Moon campaign already tied to 2027 and 2028 mission dates. (oig.nasa.gov)