When NASA astronauts train for moonwalks, they don't start on the lunar surface — they often begin underwater. For decades, NASA's Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL) has been the premier training ground for astronauts learning how to move, work, and problem-solve in the closest Earth-based simulation of microgravity. It’s inside this massive 6.2-million-gallon pool that crews rehearse everything from International Space Station repairs to complex lunar surface tasks.
Now with the upcoming Artemis missions to the moon, astronauts are training in a new type of suit: the Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit, or AxEMU, designed by Axiom Space to support the first human moonwalks in more than 50 years.
