StemRad’s AstroRad Vest Successfully Tested on Artemis I, Matching Orion’s Storm Shelter

Solar storms can unleash bursts of protons that raise astronauts’ cancer risk or cause radiation sickness. While Earth’s atmosphere and magnetic field shield us, crews heading to the Moon or Mars lack that protection, and existing spacecraft do not have sufficient shielding. In 1972, a solar storm hit during the gap between Apollo 16 and Apollo 17, highlighting the danger. Israeli‑American startup StemRad, led by Jordan Houri and Oren Milstein, proposed shielding astronauts with personal protective gear instead of relying on spacecraft shielding. To test the idea, StemRad’s team sent its wearable radiation‑shielding vest, AstroRad, aboard NASA’s uncrewed Artemis I mission to the Moon and back. Flight data were then used to model the vest’s performance during a real solar storm. The results showed that AstroRad would protect astronauts roughly as well as the heavily shielded onboard shelter in the Orion spacecraft that crews would use to wait out a storm. This demonstrates that a lightweight, personal vest can provide comparable protection to the bulkier spacecraft shielding, offering a practical solution for future deep‑space missions.