Tucson's Paragon Space to help develop new NASA spacesuits

Tucson-based Paragon Space Development Corp. is part of a team awarded a long-term NASA contract to develop the next generation spacesuit for use on missions to the moon and the International Space Station.

A team led by Houston-based Axiom Space and including Paragon was awarded NASA’s Exploration Extravehicular Activity (xEVAS) services contract, with a potential total value of $3.5 billion across the life of the program.

NASA also awarded a second industry team, led by Collins Aerospace an xEVAS services contract. Collins, part of Raytheon Technologies Corp., is partnered with industry veterans ILC Dover and Oceaneering.

The amounts of the initial 10-year, milestone-based contract awards were not announced.

Spacesuits developed as part of this program will allow humans to explore the lunar surface, provide new spacewalk capabilities outside the space station and will be critical to establishing a long-term presence at the moon and eventually to explore Mars, Paragon said.

Paragon has about 30 years’ experience in designing and developing life support and thermal control systems for extreme environments, and in January, the Tucson company acquired New York-based spacesuit supplier Final Frontier Design.

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Paragon has developed and operated its portable life-support systems for such programs such as the StratEx Mission, which in 2014 set three world records by sending Google executive Alan Eustace on a free-fall jump from the stratosphere, and for NASA’s previously canceled Constellation Spacesuit System program with Oceaneering.

“With the new capabilities we have acquired — and over a quarter-century of knowledge, design expertise, and operational experience — we at Paragon are highly confident that our contributions to the Axiom team and to NASA on this program will produce the most outstanding spacesuit for NASA” said Grant Anderson, Paragon’s president and CEO.

Paragon is currently expanding its design and production facilities and capabilities in Houston, Texas to support the spacesuit program in the years ahead, the company said.

NASA has the option to pick additional spacesuit vendors in the future under the contract, the space agency said.

The first task orders to be competed under the contract will include the development and services for the first demonstration outside the space station in low-Earth orbit and for the Artemis III lunar landing.

Axiom Space is currently building the world’s first commercial space station.