“Our aim was to create maximum warmth and durability from the lightest possible materials, and we wanted to make sure you’d be as comfortable wearing the gear in mild conditions as you would be in extreme cold. It’s this approach that led us to a material that’s already been to Titan and Mars, and why we ended up conducting our lab tests in a liquid nitrogen chamber.” says Vollebak co-founder Steve Tidball.

“The simple formula in cold weather clothing is that insulation equals warmth,” adds the other Vollebak co-founder and twin-brother Nick. “In the Titan Puffer, 50% of the total weight is in the insulation. The more weight we could save on the construction of the jacket, the more insulation we could put into it. The lining is a super-strong polyamide that NASA spent 15 years developing. This material helped land the Cassini-Huygens probe on Titan and the Perseverance Rover on Mars.”

To measure the Titan range’s performance in extreme cold, the team of Vollebak took the Titan Puffer to a lab with a liquid nitrogen testing chamber which can create rapid temperature changes. This kind of liquid nitrogen chamber is normally used to test hardware like electronic components for missiles that have to function in freezing temperatures at high altitudes.

On the outside of each piece in the Titan Range, Vollebak used a strong but lightweight ripstop fabric which was originally developed for the British Special Forces. Made from a high-tenacity nylon, it can cope with rapid temperature changes without getting damaged while the insulation is made from 100% recycled plastic bottles. In other words: ultra-smart stuff for your next winter on Earth or elsewhere in the Milky Way.