Since meeting at a 2007 astronaut glove design competition, costume fabricator Ted Southern and space-suit builder Nikolay Moiseev have worked together to build lightweight, reliable, and relatively cheap space suits for suborbital flights. The duo launched a Kickstarter campaign—successfully funded in July 2012—to help them complete a prototype for the 3G space suit, which has passed NASA's flight certification test.
FFD has received three NASA contracts to continue development of the single-layered pressurized suits. With the new Starfighters Aerospace deal, FFD will have the chance to test its 3G suit on the largest commercially available supersonic jet. “If our suits can work in the cockpit of an F-104, they can work in most any space vehicle as well," Southern said in a statement.