Pressure Suit, Apollo, AX-1L, Developmental

This garment is a heavily modified SPD-143 pressure suit. The International Latex Company of Dover, Delaware, submitted it as part of their competition to win the NASA contract to build the Apollo spacesuits. The SPD initials indicate that the company's Special Products Division created the suit. The number indicates which suit in their sequence this was. Two of the notable features of the suit are its demonstration of how ILC proposed to attach rubber/neoprene convolute and air hose connectors to the suit and to work out the various methods of restraint lacing. This suit is a very important example of the process by which NASA and the spacesuit manufacturer arrived at the final spacesuit configuration.

The donor of this pressure suit is unknown at this time. NASA may have transferred it to the Museum along with other components of the competition suits.