COLUMBIA Technologie Omni-Heat Infinity for INTUITIVE MACHINES

After presenting its Fall/Winter 2022 collection, the American brand COLUMBIA unveils a unique collaboration with Intuitive Machines (IM), the first provider of space technology and services, on the Moon.

COLUMBIA Sportswear’s new Omni-Heat Infinity reflective technology will be incorporated into the next Intuitive Machines mission for NASA.

Founded in 2013 by Stephen Altemus, Kam Ghaffarian and Tim Crain, Intuitive Machines is an American company based in Houston, Texas. The company complements its lunar program, which will provide lunar surface access, lunar orbit delivery and lunar remote communications. NASA has selected Intuitive Machines’ Lunar Payload Delivery Services (LPDS) program for 3 lunar missions that will send the first U.S. spacecraft to the lunar surface since the Apollo program, as well as the first spacecraft to reach the lunar south pole.

The first lunar mission will take place in a few months, in 2023, for a sampling and analysis mission of the ice located on the surface of the Moon. INTUITIVE MACHINES will build and launch NASA’s Nova-C lunar lander. As IM’s science partner, COLUMBIA Sportswear is providing its Omni-Heat Infinity heat-reflective technology to help protect and insulate the Nova-C lunar lander from the frigid temperatures of space, which can drop as low as -150° at night.

It was this meteorological phenomenon that caused problems for NASA scientists in the 1960s during the preparation of the historic Apollo 11 mission. They succeeded in developing a highly reflective insulating material to create the space blanket. Nearly 50 years later, COLUMBIA Sportswear has been thinking about how to solve a recurring problem in the outdoor industry : designing warmer and warmer items with maximum breathability. The COLUMBIA team’s thinking led them to adapt NASA space blanket technology to develop OMNI-HEAT REFLECTIVE, a lightweight metallic lining that reflects body heat and simultaneously allows the fabric to breathe.

At the FW 2021 collection, COLUMBIA introduced the next improved version : the Omni-Heat™ Infinity. It’s based on a « matrix » of larger gold (not aluminum) dots to provide 40% more thermal insulation than the previous version and an immediate feeling of warmth, while maintaining equally high levels of air and moisture permeability.

By equipping INTUITIVE MACHINES’ Nova-C lunar lander with Omni-Heat Infinity technology, COLUMBIA is taking a major step forward in innovation and collaborative efforts. The results of this mission will help the American outdoor label to further improve its products and develop new ones that are even more efficient.

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