NASA opts for simplified 'Sortie Suit' to speed 2028 lunar South Pole landing

NASA has decided to use a simpler spacesuit for its initial missions to the lunar surface, announced in an internal meeting this week. The agency will partner with Axiom Space to develop a "Sortie Suit" variant of the planned lunar surface suit. The new design will be used on the first landing missions flown on landers built by SpaceX and Blue Origin. The initiative aims to lower suit mass, reduce complexity, and simplify interfaces between the suits and the landers. The change is intended to accelerate the Artemis program’s goal of landing humans at the Moon’s South Pole as early as 2028.