NASA will debut new astronaut spacesuits during its next crewed mission to the International Space Station, according to 20Minutos. The suits will be tested by the crew launching on September 12.
The mission, identified as Crew-13 and operated with SpaceX, will carry astronauts to the ISS as part of a regular rotation, the outlet reports. The new suits represent a hardware update for crew members, though 20Minutos does not specify what changes the design introduces or how it differs from previous models.
The launch date and the suit testing plan were confirmed by multiple outlets, including Yahoo and poresto.com, which also linked the suits to the Crew-13 flight. The reports do not name the astronauts assigned to the mission or detail the duration of their stay aboard the station.
NASA has used the current generation of spacesuits for both launch and entry and for spacewalks, but the agency has been working on updated designs for years. The upcoming flight appears to be the first operational use of the new suits, according to the reporting.
The test comes as NASA continues to rely on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule for routine astronaut transport to the ISS. The agency has also contracted Boeing for crew flights, though no Boeing mission is mentioned in the reports.
What to watch next: whether the new suits perform as expected during launch and docking, and whether NASA expands their use to future missions or spacewalks.
