The preflight safety checklist for a trip to outer space is long, basically from here to the moon. Everything must be just so, from the structural integrity of the spacecraft to the propellant efficiency to the in-flight environment, down to the clothes on the astronauts’ backs. If the suit fails, the mission fails. Such life-or-death safety concerns are why the multibillion dollar Artemis III roadmap recently hit a bump in the road. That mission will no longer land on the moon. Instead, NASA is delaying the next moon landing until 2028. Before then, they must address rocket fuel leaks and finish landers. And they also need to perfect the spacesuits that a new generation of astronauts would actually wear on the lunar surface. SN astronomy writer Lisa Grossman maps out the detour.

🧵 Meet the space tailor

Before any actual moon landing, NASA’s Artemis III mission will be a high-stakes stress test for expensive wearable tech. Spacesuits are basically self-contained, pressurized spacecrafts with sleeves. Each suit consists of as many as 16 layers, including a liquid-cooling garment that regulates body temperature and a layer designed to repel micrometeoroids (read: space dust) that can shred standard materials. The spacesuits must be flexible enough to allow for the astronauts to bend and lift tools and to move comfortably in antigravity conditions.