[2] Best known for making space suits for NASA, ILC outfitted every United States astronaut in the Apollo program, including the twelve that walked on the Moon.

Other ILC Dover products include the airbag landing devices for Mars Pathfinder and Mars Exploration Rover (MER) missions; lighter-than-air vehicles, including airships, aerostats, and zeppelins; chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) masks and hood systems; and flexible powder-containment solutions for the pharmaceutical industry.

[citation needed] ILC Dover initially formed as a branch of the International Latex Corporation, the company founded in 1932 by Abram Spanel and later known as Playtex best known for manufacture of women's undergarments.

[5] ILC successfully designed and manufactured the suit worn by astronauts in the Apollo program, including Neil Armstrong during the first moonwalk.

In later years, their development of protective equipment expanded into type classified military chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) masks and hood systems (for example, the M43, M40, MBU-19/P).

ILC continued its support of the space program, while expanding its personal protection and lighter-than-air (LTA) vehicle lines.

ILC and Hamilton Standard submitted competing designs this time with ILC winning the sole contract based on its flexible, close-fitting design which featured water cooled undergarment, a blue inner pressurized layer, and covered in a white nylon layer to protect the suits from rocks.

[9][15] Apollo spacesuits were custom-made for each of the astronauts in the program, and for each of the twelve crewed flights carried out, ILC produced fifteen suits.

Shuttle suits are pressurized to 4.3 psi (30 kPa), and astronauts are required to breathe pure oxygen for several hours prior to EVA to remove all dissolved nitrogen from body fluids (to prevent "the bends" upon de-pressurization).

The Mk III has since been used in test programs that study space suit operations in the lunar and Mars surface environments.

The Z-1 is the first suit to be successfully integrated into a suit-port dock mechanism eliminating the need for an air lock; and reducing the consumable demands on long term missions.

The advent and growth of the cellular phone market renewed interest in the use of high altitude airships as an economical alternative to satellites.

In the past decade, ILC has worked with Lockheed Martin to support several US government-funded high-altitude airship (HAA) programs to define the system for a mobile platform capable of carrying various payloads, including communications and Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) sensors.

Currently, ILC designs and produces respirators, masks, and suits used to protect against chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) threats.

[5][23][24] In the late 1970s, ILC developed a special garment, the Demilitarization Protective Ensemble (DPE), to fulfill the U.S. Army's need for an off-the-shelf, positive pressure, totally encapsulating suit for use by maintenance personnel at a chemical weapons site.

The Chemturion is a multi-use, totally encapsulating protective suit, currently used by Public Health Canada, Boston University, USAMRIID and AI Signal Research, the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, and many industrial companies such as DuPont, Dow, and Georgia Pacific.

Flexible enclosure systems or specific products, such as the DoverPac, G2Pac and Continuous Liner, can be incorporated into various procedures in the manufacturing process to provide containment of potent pharmaceutical agents, protecting workers from harmful exposure and ensuring purity of the pharmaceutical agents by preventing contamination.

[28][29] ILC has developed and manufactured a variety of inflatable habitats, airlocks, and shelters for use in Earth orbit and lunar / planetary exploration.

Products include ballutes and decelerators; floats; munition dispensing systems; UAV wings; radomes; and shelters.