(Updated) NASA to reveal companies that will develop new spacesuits for Moon missions, spacewalking

NASA said on Friday it will select the next generation of spacesuits for the future Artemis missions at the Moon and the International Space Station (ISS).

During an upcoming event at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, the agency will announce the company, or companies selected to move forward in developing new spacesuits for Moonwalking and spacewalking. The announcement will air live on NASA Television, the agency's website, and the NASA app on June 1.

"New spacesuits that allow humans to explore the lunar surface and unlock new spacewalk capabilities outside the International Space Station are a critical part of advancing human exploration in space and demonstrating continued American leadership. Under Artemis, new exploration spacesuits, together with human surface mobility systems, the Space Launch System rocket, the Orion Spacecraft, ground systems, Gateway, and human landing systems, will enable NASA to return humans to and establish a long-term presence at the Moon and to eventually explore Mars," NASA said in a statement.

We’ll announce who is moving forward in developing the next generation of spacesuits for spacewalking at the @Space_Station & #Artemis missions at the Moon. Tune in Wed, June 1 at 2pm ET (18:00 UTC) here or on https://t.co/z1RgZwQkWS.Media RSVP info: https://t.co/49o8ANosqn pic.twitter.com/6dvWNUCu1r

— NASA (@NASA) May 27, 2022

The new suit that will be worn by Artemis astronauts is called the Exploration Extravehicular Mobility Unit (xEMU). They might look like the suits that astronauts use for spacewalks outside the space station today, but the new suit will allow future moonwalkers to accomplish much more complex tasks than their predecessors.

NASA says the new spacesuit is designed with interchangeable parts that can be configured for spacewalks in microgravity or on a planetary surface. The agency will test the next-generation suits and several of its components on the International Space Station in a spaceflight environment to confirm the overall performance.

Update 

NASA has selected Axiom Space and Collins Aerospace to move forward with their spacesuit design. The duo was chosen from the Exploration Extravehicular Activity Services (xEVAS) contract solicitation.