The Cosmos line is a complete crew-worn architecture for sustained lunar surface operations: the VO-EMU exploration suit in two mission-tuned finishes — Lux and Umbra — the rear-mounted VITAE life-support pack, the Meridian liquid-cooled undergarment, and the first purpose-built intravehicular apparel system for long-duration habitat life.
VO-EMU · LUX FINISH
A surface suit is a single-person spacecraft. Every requirement in the Cosmos specification traces to one of three pillars — Survival (the suit keeps you alive, self-contained, no umbilical), Mobility (lunar gravity changes how you move — you lunge and pivot, you don't walk), and Human Factors (the contract is won by designing for the person inside).
Constant 4.3 psi differential on 100% O₂, with 8.2 psi structural capability for reduced-prebreathe operations. Regenerable CO₂ and humidity control, redundant oxygen, redundant cooling, and a thermal envelope from −157 °C shadow to +121 °C direct sun. Micrometeoroid and dust protection engineered for the abrasive, electrostatically charged regolith of the lunar South Pole.
ΔP 4.3 psi nominal · O₂ 99.9% aviator grade · −157 °C → +121 °C
A hybrid joint architecture: hard bearings where torque is highest (shoulder, waist, hip, ankle) and low-torque soft convolute joints at elbows and knees. Softgoods engineering keeps joint torque under 2 N·m across the working range, and the VITAE pack is mass-tuned so the combined center of gravity stays inside the boot footprint during a full kneel-and-recover cycle.
Joint torque < 2 N·m · full kneel · 1st–99th percentile fit
Rear-entry donning through the pack hatch in under 12 minutes, unassisted. All telemetry on a visor waveguide HUD running Odyssey OS — no 20-button cuff. An in-suit drink bag, a waste system that feels like athletic apparel rather than a diaper, and a modular sizing kit of swappable limb segments that fits any crewmember on base.
Don < 12 min unassisted · HUD telemetry · modular sizing
Both finishes share an identical pressure garment and VITAE pack. What changes is the thermo-optical surface of the environmental shell — tuned to opposite ends of the lunar lighting environment. This is not cosmetic: surface optical properties drive the suit's radiative heat balance and the crewmember's visibility to teammates and cameras.
Matte-white PTFE-Viton shell with low solar absorptance and high infrared emissivity (α/ε ≈ 0.20/0.90). Rejects direct solar load during long daylight traverses and multi-hour static tasks — drilling, construction, sample curation — where the sun does not move appreciably. The white shell also gives maximum optical contrast against dark regolith for crew tracking.
α 0.20 · ε 0.90 · equatorial & sunlit-slope EVAs · max camera contrast
Spectral-control black: a visibly dark fluoropolymer topcoat loaded with NIR-reflective pigment that rejects ~55% of total solar energy while retaining high emissivity where it matters. In permanently shadowed regions and long polar twilight there is no solar load to reflect — the trade flips to glare suppression at low sun angles, reduced visor veiling luminance, and heat retention margin for cryogenic terrain work.
NIR-reflective black · PSR & twilight EVAs · anti-glare · aerogel sole for −230 °C terrain
Seven functional strata between skin and vacuum. Where the Apollo/Shuttle heritage stack used up to 14 discrete plies, Cosmos co-molds and laminates functions together — the thermal garment alone is 30% thinner than xEMU heritage at equal protection. Select a layer to inspect it.
The suit is a kit, not a monolith. Each assembly below is independently qualified, independently replaceable on base, and connects through standardized dust-sealed interfaces.
A suit-fixed hemispherical bubble (the head moves inside it, Orlan-style — no neck bearing torque) in optical-grade polycarbonate with a protective outer visor and a deployable gold-metallized sun visor.
Toray T1100 carbon-fiber composite shell with a co-cured PTFE-Viton outer skin. Carries the helmet ring, shoulder bearings, front equipment rails, and the rear-entry hatch that doubles as the VITAE pack mounting plane.
Twelve sealed rotary bearings — scye (shoulder), upper arm, wrist ×2, waist, hip ×2, thigh ×2, ankle ×2 — machined from additively printed Ti-6Al-4V races with dual-lip fluorocarbon seals behind a regolith labyrinth. Elbows and knees are low-torque Vectran convolute soft joints with anti-ballooning axial restraint cords.
Fine motor control at 4.3 psi: co-molded LCP finger bladders sized from the crewmember's own hand scan, thin-gauge PTFE-Viton abrasion shells, and silicone fingertip pads that are capacitive-touch compatible.
The only component in permanent regolith contact. Reinforced PTFE-Viton upper over a Vectran restraint bootie, with a convolute ankle joint and a rigid composite midsole.
Everything the body needs across nine suited hours, engineered to disappear from the crewmember's attention.
Every survival function lives in one rear-mounted, hot-swappable pack — nothing bolted to the chest, nothing on a cart, no umbilical. 66 × 48 × 19 cm, 54 kg: the volume of a slim expedition backpack, tuned so the suited center of gravity stays neutral in 1/6 g. The pack structure is an additively manufactured titanium frame that doubles as the rear-entry hatch, and every ORU (orbital replaceable unit) inside swaps on base with hand tools.
Two carbon-overwrapped pressure vessels feed series-redundant dual-stage regulators stepping 4,500 psi down to suit pressure. Metabolic makeup plus leakage margin for a full shift.
2 × COPV @ 4,500 psi · 1.4 kg usable O₂
8 h nominal + leakage margin
Series-redundant regulation
An independent high-pressure bottle, regulator and flow path with two contingency modes: open-loop purge (heritage-conservative, sized to the real physics — ~30 min/kg), or a semi-closed mode that keeps the RCA scrubbing and stretches the same bottle past 90 minutes.
5,800 psi bottle · 1.2 kg O₂
Open purge 35 min · semi-closed > 90 min
Fully independent flow path
Dual-bed solid-amine sorbent alternately adsorbs CO₂ and humidity, regenerating each bed to vacuum. No LiOH canisters, no consumables, no EVA duration limit from scrubbing.
Vacuum-swing · 8 min half-cycles
Holds ppCO₂ < 4.0 mmHg @ 2,000 BTU/h
100-EVA sorbent life
A spacesuit water membrane evaporator — thousands of hollow polypropylene fibers venting water vapor to vacuum — chills the Meridian coolant loop. Contamination-tolerant and freeze-recoverable, unlike heritage sublimators.
810 W continuous heat rejection
3.6 kg feedwater / 8 h
Backup mini-membrane evaporator
A centrifugal fan drives the oxygen loop — helmet wash, limb ducts, RCA, and back. A second fan sits in parallel as a spinning-reserve backup with automatic switchover.
170 L/min loop flow
Dual fans · auto failover
Condensate handled by RCA beds
A 28 V lithium-ion ORU with cell-level fusing and BMS, sized against the worst case — a shadowed-region EVA where fingertip/boot heaters, pump load and radios run continuously, not the sunlit average. Hot-swappable at a suitport or rover mid-EVA without depressurizing.
28 VDC · 54 Ah · 1.5 kWh
~110 W sunlit avg · ~165 W PSR budget
Mid-EVA hot-swap ORU · 500-cycle life
Dual software-defined radios form a self-healing mesh between crew, rovers, and base, with 4K video uplink. UWB ranging plus IMU dead-reckoning paints breadcrumb navigation on the HUD — GPS does not exist on the Moon.
2 × SDR mesh · 4K uplink
UWB + IMU nav, HUD breadcrumbs
Voice-loop priority QoS
Triple flight computers in 2oo3 voting run Odyssey OS — a 2oo2 pair can detect a disagreement but not resolve it; three votes can. Beneath them sits a dissimilar-hardware backup that holds pressure, purge and voice with zero software in common with the primaries. C&W is spoken in plain language — "O₂ margin 90 minutes at current rate. Turn around in 20."
3 × FC · 2oo3 voting
Dissimilar hardware backup tier
Plain-language C&W on HUD + audio
Laser powder-bed titanium lattice frame, topology-optimized around the ORU bays; its forward face is the pressure hatch itself. CG tuned so a crewmember bending to pick up a sample stays balanced without a counterweight step.
L-PBF Ti-6Al-4V lattice
66 × 48 × 19 cm · 54 kg wet
All ORUs replaceable on base
A chest-mounted service connector lets the suit ride on rover or habitat consumables — O₂, chilled water, power, hardline comms — whenever one is in reach. Crew arrive at the far worksite with a full pack, and the traverse legs stop counting against the 8-hour clock.
O₂ · coolant · 28 V · data hardline
Auto handover, no crew action
Recharges feedwater & battery in transit
A solid-state dosimeter stack in the pack plus a knit-in personal dosimeter in the Meridian garment. Live dose and dose-rate feed the HUD and base medical; a rate trigger tied to space-weather alerts starts the shelter clock automatically.
Si + tissue-equivalent channels
Dose / dose-rate on HUD
Auto SPE shelter-return trigger
A body-mounted selective-emissivity radiator panel to shed the baseline heat load, holding the SWME in reserve for peaks. Cuts feedwater — the one consumable that scales with every EVA — by an estimated 60% on shadowed traverses.
Block 2 upgrade path
−60% feedwater (PSR ops, est.)
Retrofit ORU, same pack envelope
A suited body produces 300–590 W of metabolic heat; gas ventilation alone removes barely a fifth of it. We evaluated three undergarment architectures against an 8-hour surface shift. The trade selects a liquid cooling and ventilation garment — and then rebuilds it with whole-garment 3D knitting.
| Criterion | Vent-only wicking suit (IVA heritage) | Sewn tube LCVG (EMU heritage) | Meridian 3D-knit LCVG (selected) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Peak heat removal | ~120 W — fails above light work | ~590 W | ~590 W, higher tube-skin contact efficiency |
| Construction | 2D cut-and-sew | Nylon/spandex, 91 m of hand-threaded Tygon tube | Whole-garment warp knit; tube channels knit in place, zero seams at flex lines |
| Comfort / pressure points | Good | Tube ridges, seam chafe on long EVAs | Graded compression, no seams, tubes float in spacer channels |
| Biometrics | None | None | Knit-in ECG, skin & core temp, respiration nodes |
| Don time | 2 min | 6–8 min | 3 min, single back zip + one umbilical |
| Mass | 0.9 kg | 2.9 kg | 2.1 kg |
~88 m of soft TPU microtube circulates chilled water from the VITAE SWME loop at 1.8 L/min across torso, limbs and neck. A parallel knit duct network returns vent gas from the extremities. Cooling is closed-loop: the Odyssey controller trims water temperature (7–18 °C) against core-temperature trend, so the crewmember never touches a manual diverter valve.
Against the skin sits the VO Linen base layer — the same smart-knit merino/lyocell blend as the habitat apparel line, with silver-ion antimicrobial finish. It manages moisture at the skin, carries the sensor-node contacts, and means the transition from habitat clothing to suited operations is one garment, not a wardrobe change.
Rear entry through the VITAE hatch — the astronaut steps into the suit, which hangs on the suitport wall. No overhead torso lift, no second crewmember required, no shoulder-injury mechanism. Target: under 12 minutes, unassisted, habitat-to-ready.
Fresh absorption core clipped into the brief shell; base layer carries the biometric contacts.
2 minSingle back zip; one multi-way umbilical connects water, vent and biometrics to the suit interior.
3 minHatch open on the suitport wall; step into the lower torso, arms into sleeves, head up through the neck ring into the fixed helmet.
2 minPull-cord swings the VITAE pack shut; one over-center handle engages the perimeter latch train. Gloves lock at the wrist QDs.
1 minOdyssey runs pressurization to 4.3 psi, leak decay check, loop flow, comms and HUD boot — pass/fail spoken aloud, no checklist cards.
3 minFrom an 8.2 psi / 34% O₂ habitat: staged-pressure protocol inside the suit cuts pure-O₂ prebreathe to ~15 min (vs. up to 4 h ISS heritage). Suitport undock — the suit exterior, and its dust, never enter the habitat.
~15 minDOFFING IS THE REVERSE PATH · POST-EVA THE SUIT REMAINS DOCKED OUTBOARD ON THE SUITPORT · ELECTRODYNAMIC DUST SHIELD RUNS A CLEANING CYCLE WHILE STOWED
No suit shields galactic cosmic rays, and honest engineering says so. What a suit can do is see a solar particle event coming, get the crew to shelter before dose accumulates, keep a punctured or bent-over crewmember alive, and bring an incapacitated one home. Cosmos treats all four as designed, rehearsed modes — not appendix material.
Space-weather feeds (GOES-class proton flux plus upstream solar observatories) stream to base and to every suit. When forecast or measured dose-rate crosses threshold, Odyssey starts a spoken shelter countdown sized to each crewmember's actual walk-back time — computed continuously from the nav breadcrumb trail, not a fixed rule of thumb. Large SPEs typically give tens of minutes to hours of onset warning; the system is built to need only the minutes.
Live dose + dose-rate on HUD · auto shelter trigger · per-crew walk-back clock
The stack is hydrogen-rich by construction — aerogel, polymer layers, the water-filled Meridian tubing and IDB — and the VITAE pack shadows the torso from behind. Combined, the suit provides meaningful attenuation of SPE protons (which passive mass does stop), formally credited in the crew dose model rather than hand-waved. GCR is managed by the habitat and mission dose budget, where it belongs.
Hydrogenous stack · pack as torso shadow shield · credited in NASA-STD-3001 dose model
The 8.2 psi structural capability is a medical device, not just a prebreathe shortcut. Decompression sickness symptoms on the surface are treated in-suit: Odyssey raises suit pressure to 8.2 psi on 100% O₂ — a hyperbaric-equivalent treatment relative to the 4.3 psi exposure — while the crewmember walks or rides home. No lunar habitat will carry a hyperbaric chamber; the suit is the chamber.
In-suit O₂ treatment at 8.2 psi · guided by C&W protocol · consumables model re-plans automatically
A thigh-pocket patch kit seals shell-through-bladder punctures from outside: peel-and-press fluoropolymer patches rated to full ΔP, plus an injectable bladder sealant for pinholes. The consumables model instantly re-computes remaining time at the measured leak rate and speaks it. Suit-level leakage tolerance and the 35-minute purge mode bound the unpatchable case.
External patches to full ΔP · sealant for pinholes · live leak-rate-to-time conversion
Every EVA runs as a pair within rescue range. The suit carries flush drag handles at the HUT shoulders and hip, a tow loop rated for one-crew drag in 1/6 g, and the rear hatch is operable entirely from outside — a rescuer docks the casualty to the suitport and the habitat crew takes them straight in, no airlock cycle, no doffing in the field.
Two-crew rule · external hatch operation · suitport casualty ingest < 5 min
Comms loss triggers autonomous return guidance: the IMU + UWB breadcrumb trail replays on the HUD with no base link required. If the HUD itself is down, the forearm mechanical ΔP gauge, an analog compass card, and the physically visible rover/habitat beacon lights form the last-ditch tier. Every failure mode ends with a walkable path home.
Offline breadcrumb-return · analog instrument tier · beacon light protocol
There is no laundry on the Moon, and every gram of clothing launched is a gram of science not launched. The Cosmos apparel system is the first purpose-built IVA wardrobe: 30-day wear cycles, closed-loop recycling, and biometric continuity from bunk to suitport. Like the suits, it ships in Lux and Umbra.
Primary duty garment. VO Linen smart-knit — 55% superwash merino, 30% FR lyocell, 15% PBI — inherently flame-resistant in enriched-O₂ habitat atmospheres without chemical treatment, naturally odor-suppressing, and low-lint to protect ECLSS filters.
30-day wear · silver-ion antimicrobial · zero-velcro magnetic closures · dosimeter pocket
Identical construction in the Umbra colorway with reflective rank/role piping — in a six-person habitat, instant role identification (commander, medical, EVA lead) is a safety feature, not a style choice. Knit sensor nodes keep the same biometric stream the Meridian garment uses, so crew health monitoring never stops at the airlock.
Role-coded piping · knit-in biometrics · thermal comfort 18–24 °C habitat range
Per crewmember, per 30-day cycle: 2 coveralls, 6 tee/brief sets, 1 thermal mid-layer, 3 pairs grip socks, 1 pair habitat boot-liners (pictured in the line renders), 1 sleep set. Total kit mass 6.8 kg — 61% lighter than the ISS clothing allocation for the same duration.
End-of-life garments are shredded and hot-pressed into acoustic and thermal batting for habitat outfitting — the fiber blend was chosen to be recyclable as a unit, no sorting. Nothing joins the trash airlock queue.
Flight clothing today is off-the-shelf cotton and polyester chosen by crew office catalogs. Nothing in the market is engineered for O₂-enriched flammability, filter lint load, 30-day hygiene, and biometric continuity as a system. This line is that system.
One data spine from body scan to flight article. Every suit is serialized, every ply and weld traceable, every crewmember's geometry a parameter — not a custom project. Rate capability: 20 suit-equivalents per year from a single line.
Photogrammetric + IR body scan → parametric crew model drives every pattern and bladder mold downstream.
Whole-garment 3D warp knitting for VO Linen, Meridian LCVG and apparel — zero-waste, seam-free at flex zones.
LCP pressure bladders rotationally co-molded, seams RF-welded and laser-profilometry inspected; Vectran restraint laid by automated fiber placement and laser-cut.
HUT via automated fiber placement + autoclave cure; bearing races and VITAE frame in L-PBF titanium, machined to seal finish.
Aerogel thermal plies needle-punch laminated; PTFE-Viton shell bonded with EDS mesh; ORUs bench-tested then integrated.
X-ray CT of every weld, 1.5× proof pressure hold, 100k-cycle joint rigs, manned vacuum-chamber run per NASA-STD-3001 before delivery.
The features that differentiate Cosmos are, by definition, the least mature parts of it. This table says so out loud — with a heritage fallback behind every low-TRL bet, so no single technology sits on the crewed-flight critical path.
| Technology | TRL today | Principal risk | Fallback / mitigation | Path to TRL 6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Co-molded LCP pressure bladder | 3–4 | Process yield; joint fatigue at convolutes | Urethane-coated nylon bladder (EMU/xEMU lineage, TRL 9), same restraint & interfaces | Coupon → limb article → full-suit cycle & burst, 24 mo |
| Aerogel thermal garment | 4–5 | Flex-cycle dusting/particulation; sewability | Hybrid stack: aerogel at load zones (knees, soles, seat), MLI elsewhere | Thermal-vac + 100k-flex rigs in JSC-1A simulant |
| Electrodynamic dust shield on textile | 5 on rigid panels (flight-demonstrated); 3–4 on fabric | Electrode fatigue on flexible substrate | Passive-only baseline: labyrinth seals + self-cleaning fluoropolymer meet dust spec unaided; EDS is margin | Flexible-substrate demo, then suit-arm testbed |
| Rapid Cycle Amine 3.0 | 6 — xEMU/AxEMU heritage | Low — sorbent life margin verification | Direct heritage design carryover | Life-cycle testing only |
| SWME cooling | 6 — 800+ h NASA test heritage | Low — feedwater quality sensitivity | Backup mini-membrane evaporator already in pack | Integration testing only |
| Waveguide HUD in bubble helmet | 4 | Optics in curved visor; veiling glare at low sun angles | Chest-mounted display + voice C&W (audio tier is primary regardless); mechanical gauge backup retained | Optical bench → vacuum-rated prototype → field trials |
| 3D-knit Meridian LCVG | 4–5 | Knit-in tube channel durability over launder cycles | Sewn-tube LCVG (50-yr flight heritage) drops into identical umbilical | Wear-cycle + metabolic chamber trials, 18 mo |
| Suitport interface | 5 — extensively prototyped (NASA SEV program) | Habitat-side dependency; seal dust tolerance | Suit is fully airlock-compatible without modification | Joint qual with habitat provider |
| MCP hybrid glove fingers | 2–3 · Block 2 roadmap | Even compression over knuckle topology | Baseline gas-pressure Dexter glove is fully capable; MCP is an upgrade, not a dependency | Research track, not on critical path |
| Radiator-assist thermal | 3 · Block 2 roadmap | Dust degradation of emissive surface | SWME alone meets full spec; radiator only buys feedwater margin | Research track, not on critical path |
TRL PER NASA SYSTEMS ENGINEERING HANDBOOK SCALE · EVERY BLOCK-1 LOW-TRL ITEM CARRIES A TRL-9-HERITAGE FALLBACK · BLOCK-2 ITEMS ARE OFF THE CRITICAL PATH BY DESIGN
Estimates in FY2026 dollars, built bottom-up from material rates and touch-labor at 20 units/year. For reference: NASA's shuttle-era EMUs cost ≈ $22M each in today's dollars, and the AxEMU program task order runs $228M. Cosmos targets a recurring unit under $5M — the digital thread is the reason.
| Material | Est. rate | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Vectran HT weave (aero cert) | $310 /m² | Restraint, convolutes |
| LCP membrane film | $95 /m² | Pressure bladder |
| Silica aerogel composite sheet | $180 /m² | Thermal garment, soles |
| PTFE-Viton laminate | $260 /m² | Environmental shell |
| T1100 carbon prepreg | $85 /m² | HUT, midsoles |
| VO Linen smart-knit | $48 /m² | Base layer, apparel |
| Ti-6Al-4V L-PBF powder | $290 /kg | Bearings, VITAE frame |
| Assembly | Est. cost |
|---|---|
| Softgoods materials (bladder, restraint, thermal, shell, Linen) | $215k |
| Hard structure (HUT, hatch, 12 bearings, disconnects) | $640k |
| Helios helmet, visors & HUD optics | $310k |
| Dexter gloves (2 custom pairs) | $180k |
| VITAE pack (tanks, RCA, SWME, fans, battery, avionics, radios) | $1.90M |
| Meridian LCVG + base layers (3 sets) | $60k |
| Assembly, integration & acceptance test (~6,800 h) | $1.40M |
| Recurring unit total | ≈ $4.7M |
FIRST ARTICLE / QUAL UNITS ≈ $11M EA · DEVELOPMENT TO CREWED FLIGHT CERT ≈ $135M PROGRAM · APPAREL: COVERALL ≈ $2,400, FULL 30-DAY CREW KIT ≈ $19K
Every flown or announced EVA system, against the Cosmos specification. The apparel line has no market comparable — flight clothing today is catalog-ordered cotton.
| Parameter | VO Cosmos EVA | NASA EMU (ISS) | Axiom AxEMU | SpaceX EVA | Orlan-MKS | Feitian |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mission domain | Lunar surface + µg | µg only | Lunar surface | µg, umbilical only | µg only | µg only |
| Operating pressure | 4.3 psi · 8.2 psi capable | 4.3 psi | ~4.3 psi | cabin-fed | 5.8 psi | 5.7 psi |
| EVA duration | 8 h + 1 h reserve | ~7 h | 8 h | ~2 h (umbilical) | up to 9 h | ~7 h |
| Life support | Self-contained VITAE pack | PLSS, LiOH/Metox | PLSS, regenerable | Umbilical — no pack | PLSS | PLSS |
| CO₂ control | Regenerable RCA — no consumables | Consumable canisters | Regenerable | Cabin loop | Consumable LiOH | Consumable LiOH |
| Entry | Rear hatch, unassisted < 12 min | Waist, assisted | Rear hatch | Spiral zip (assisted) | Rear hatch | Rear hatch |
| Suitport / dust isolation | Suitport-ready + electrodynamic dust shield | No | Airlock only | N/A | No | No |
| Thermal garment | Aerogel composite — insulates under load (kneeling, sitting) | MLI — fails under compression | MLI-based | Single flame-resistant layer | MLI | MLI |
| Telemetry interface | Waveguide HUD + voice C&W | Chest DCM, cuff checklist | Displays + HUD (planned) | Helmet HUD | Suit display panel | Panel |
| Undergarment | 3D-knit LCVG w/ biometrics | Sewn-tube LCVG | LCVG (Prada co-dev) | None (vent only) | LCVG | LCVG |
| Sizing | Modular kit, 1st–99th percentile | Limited HUT sizes | 1st–99th percentile | Semi-custom | One-size adjustable | Adjustable |
| Service life | 100 EVAs field-maintainable, all ORUs swap on base | Depot return to Earth | TBD | Single-mission | ~20 EVAs / 4 yr | Limited reuse |
| Unit economics | ≈ $4.7M recurring @ rate | ≈ $22M (2026$) | $228M program task order | Undisclosed | Undisclosed | Undisclosed |
COMPETITOR FIGURES FROM PUBLIC SOURCES (NASA, NASA OIG, AXIOM SPACE, ROSCOSMOS/NPP ZVEZDA, CMSA, SPACEX POLARIS PROGRAM) · COSMOS FIGURES ARE DESIGN TARGETS PENDING QUALIFICATION