Twenty-one layers of fabric, rubber, and film, hand-sewn by seamstresses at ILC Dover — a manufacturer of Playtex undergarments. The A7L Spacesuit was a miniature spacecraft in its own right: it protected against vacuum, temperatures from −156 to +121 °C, and micrometeoroids.
The PLSS backpack supplied oxygen, water cooling circulated through tubing in the undergarment, and radio communication — for seven hours of operation. The outer layer consisted of fireproof beta cloth made of glass fibers; the gloves had silicone fingertips so astronauts could retain sensitivity in their fingers.
The a7l spacesuit in numbers
- WEIGHT (WITH PLSS)
- 81 kg
- NUMBER OF LAYERS
- 21
- PLSS ENDURANCE
- 7 hodin
- TEMPERATURE RANGE
- −156 až +121 °C
- SUIT PRESSURE
- 25,5 kPa
- MANUFACTURER
- ILC Dover
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Facts
- The A7L Spacesuit was made up of many layers of different materials — from nylon and Teflon to Kevlar-like layers that protected the astronaut from extreme temperatures and micrometeoroids.
- The Apollo spacesuits were hand-sewn by ILC Dover — a former maker of Playtex undergarments — because its seamstresses had experience sewing flexible, precisely fitted garments.
- The suit’s outer layer was white to reflect solar radiation — on the airless Moon, temperatures on the sunlit side exceed 120 °C.
Check yourself
What does a suit need to do to keep a person alive on the Moon?
Answer in your own words — everything you need is in the article above.
Sources & further reading
- Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum — Neil Armstrong’s A7L spacesuit from the Apollo 11 mission.
- Wikipedia (EN): A7L — technical description of the spacesuit (no Czech version), CC-BY-SA 4.0.
- NASA History Office — Apollo Program.
Spaceflightpedia. (n.d.). A7L Spacesuit. Retrieved 9 October 2026, from https://spaceflightpedia.com/article/skafandr-a7l
article text — CC-BY-SA · ◉ NASA photography — public domain · ✦ AI illustration — marked, generated from sources
