SpaceX unveils white new spacesuit for astronaut travel

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SpaceX has unveiled a sleek white spacesuit for astronauts on its crewed flights coming up next year.

Chief executive Elon Musk made the big reveal via Instagram on Wednesday with a first official photo. He says it’s not him in the new suit, rather a SpaceX engineer.

"Worth noting that this actually works (not a mockup)," he wrote. "Was incredibly hard to balance esthetics and function."

SpaceX is developing a crew version of its Dragon cargo capsule for NASA astronauts. Boeing is also working to get US astronauts flying again from home soil. Boeing is going blue for spacesuits for its Starliner capsules.

US astronauts last rocketed away from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in 2011. They’ve since been riding Russian rockets to get to the International Space Station.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk revealed the spacesuit on his official Instagram account.

Musk says the new SpaceX suit has been tested on the earth — and works. He says it was incredibly hard to balance aesthetics and function.

Musk also teased on Instagram, "More in days to follow," implying another crew vessel under way- NASA's Orion, which is designed to undertake more complex tasks than space station walks, such as trips to Moon, Mars and beyond.

Notably, Boeing is also developing a crew-worthy spacecraft that NASA granted contract to the company in 2014, along with SpaceX. Now the race is on for who will launch their first crewed missions, with both expected next year.

Earlier Boeing revealed a spacesuit that differs from SpaceX's esthetics, which is in bright blue color.

Screenshot of Boing's Tweet featuring its blue spacesuit.

Source(s): AP