"In space the sun is really harsh, it feels as if it's piercing through your eyes," says Koichi Wakata, an astronaut and the Chief Technology Officer for Axiom Space. "We need an exceptional visor system to protect [our] eyes and [offer] maximum visibility to enable [astronauts] to work in the challenging lunar environment." The Texas-based company, which is making the Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit (AxEMU) spacesuit that astronauts on NASA's Artemis III mission will wear, turned to Oakley to develop the visor.

"The next person to walk on the Moon will be wearing Oakley's next-gen High-Definition Optics (HDO), and that's a responsibility we don't take lightly," says Ryan Saylor, Oakley's SVP of Advanced Product Development.

The company developed multiple layers of coating, including one of 24K gold, in order to tune the transmittance of light while protecting astronauts from solar radiation, infrared and UV light (which the gold filters out).

The scratch-resistant outer coating they developed is tough enough to withstand lunar dust, and there's also a flip-down visor to completely block light from the upper portion of the visor during super-harsh conditions.

Artemis III is scheduled to launch in 2027.

Here are the Oakley and Axiom Space teams on the development of the visor:

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