TAMPA, Fla. — A Tampa company is testing a new technology during the Artemis I mission that will help keep astronauts safer during future trips to the moon.

The AstroRad vest was created by StemRad and the company’s CEO Dr. Oren Milstein says their role in Monday’s launch is more than a decade in the making.

He says he was inspired to create the vest after witnessing the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011.

“I felt that I had a good idea that could really help first responders at radiological incidents to protect them from the awful effects of gamma radiation,” he said. “So we developed a product to protect first responders and that product was a great hit.”

Milstein then teamed up with Lockheed Martin to create a similar vest for astronauts in deep space.

“During a solar particle event or a solar particle flair, crew members will be exposed to potentially deadly amount of radiation,” Milstein said. ”So they’ll be wearing this vest, this piece of PPE, during the midst of a solar particle event.”

These solar particle events could last anywhere from a couple of hours to a few weeks.

“We made sure that the vest is very ergonomic and convenient to be worn and we’ve been testing it on the International Space Station over the course of two years,” he said.

Now they’re ready to test it in real life conditions around the moon.

Milstein said he decided to locate the company to Tampa after he was contacted by the Florida-Israel Business Accelerator.

He’s received investments from some of Tampa’s biggest names including the Patel family and Jeff Vinik of the Tampa Bay Lightning.

StemRad is headquartered out of Tel Aviv with its U.S. office located in Tampa.