Mission Artémis I: a real challenge for European industry
Combination photos showing the Saturn V rocket with the Apollo 12 spacecraft on board on the Kennedy Space Center launch pad in 1969, left.
At right, NASA's new lunar rocket for the Artemis program with the Orion spacecraft atop it, at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, March 18, 2022. AP
Text by: RFI Follow
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Security, propulsion, navigation and communication with NASA, the European Space Agency carried out its last tests on Monday August 22 before the takeoff of the Orion capsule on August 29 for the Artemis I mission, heading for the Moon.
The opportunity for Europe to show what it is capable of in terms of space equipment.
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Forty-two days of flights to test the equipment for an unprecedented space mission since the Apollo mission in 1972, the result of collaboration between Americans and Europeans.
The European Space Agency provided NASA with the European service module which is the main source of energy for the Orion capsule.
A real challenge for French industry, as Antoine Alouani, propulsion specialist at Airbus explains: “
For us as an industry, this is the first time that we have gone so far in a manned mission with NASA. , with international partners who are very demanding in terms of level of quality, level of reliability.
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►To listen also:
Lionel Suchet: "The particularity of Artemis I is to install a permanent base on the Moon"
Artemis III in sight
Artemis I is a bit of a dress rehearsal for the next lunar epic, since next week's flight will be without an astronaut on board.
“
This flight is a test flight,
explains Philippe Deroo, in charge of the Orion project at the European Space Agency.
Inside the capsule, there are actually three mannequins.
The first will be a male dummy, to calculate accelerations etc.
;
and there will be two female mannequins.
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Models that prefigure the arrival of women on the Moon, with the Artemis III mission, scheduled for 2025 at the earliest.
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