Axiom Space (Suits)

Recognized under Tier 4 — Life Support Systems, Axiom Space is developing the AxEMU (Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit), the lunar surface spacesuit selected by NASA for the Artemis III landing. Working with KBR, Axiom completed the AxEMU's first uncrewed thermal vacuum test in November 2025 at the same Johnson Space Center facility used to prepare Apollo astronauts, evaluating the suit's thermal performance and materials under vacuum conditions. By early 2026 the program had logged roughly 700–850 hours of crewed pressurized testing, including dual-suit runs, emergency rescue drills, and simulated geology sampling at the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory, with a crewed vacuum-chamber test planned for early 2026 ahead of critical design review; a flight test aboard the ISS or Artemis III is targeted for 2027. As a self-contained portable life support system, the AxEMU must keep an astronaut alive against the Moon's temperature extremes and dust environment — engineering directly ported to future Mars surface EVA suits.