Commander Monikin Campus on the command bridge: The US space agency has finished installing the mannequin that will fly to the moon. Barring any last-minute surprises, between August 29 and September 5, humanity will take a giant step toward the Moon with the launch of the Artemis 1 mission. The launch will actually be the maiden flight of NASA’s Superheavy Space Launch System (SLS), the maiden flight of NASA’s Orion spacecraft and the maiden flight of the Israeli doll “Zohar” to the moon.
The SLS is the largest and most powerful solid fuel launcher ever built. It stands 32 stories tall and burns six tons of fuel every second. Each of its two boosters produces more thrust than 14 civilian jumbo jets. The SLS, work on which began in 2011 and cost the American taxpayer 23 billion dollars, is intended to be used by the American space agency for manned exploration of deep space in the current decade and the one after.
The SLS is the only launcher in the world (currently, until SpaceX finishes building the Starship, and the Chinese – the Long March 9) that is capable of launching both astronauts and heavy cargo in one mission to the moon. On top of the SLS is placed the Orion spacecraft, which is able to support six crew members beyond low satellite orbit – for periods of up to 21 days without docking.
The SLS and Orion were originally designed to land the first astronauts on Mars early in the next decade. However, on December 11, 2019, US President Donald Trump signed a presidential order instructing NASA to land the first woman and the next man on the lunar surface by 2024. The head of NASA at the time, Jim Bridenstine, announced that the new program would be called Artemis, Apollo’s sister and the goddess of the moon in Greek mythology.Surprisingly, Joe Biden’s administration did not cancel the plan, as is the custom of administrations over the years, but increased the budget for Artemis and ordered the space agency to also land the first African-American on the moon.
Honoring the engineer who saved Apollo 13
Artemis 1 to be launched in a month will be the fulfillment of all these dreams: the SLS, Orion and Artemis. The launcher will launch the spacecraft for a 26- to 42-day mission, of which at least six days will be in orbit around the moon. Since this is the maiden launch of the launcher and the spacecraft, this mission will not be manned. Instead of flesh and blood astronauts sat in Orion three mannequins: the commander of the mission Commander Moonikin (Moonikin – word play on “mannequin” and “moon”) Campos and the two female mannequins – Helga and Zohar.
Last week, NASA announced that it had successfully installed Monikin Campos, named after the electrical engineer Arturo Campos – an electrical engineer who worked at NASA. On April 13, 1970, Campos was awakened from his sleep by the explosion of the oxygen tank on the Apollo 13 spacecraft. Astronauts Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert and Fred Hayes were stranded without power 320,000 km from Earth. Arturo Campos was the one who wrote the emergency plan for the diversion of power From the lunar lander to the command vehicle – allowing the astronauts to heat, light and propel the spacecraft back home.
while the moniker Campos is a mannequin that sits in the mission commander’s chair in the Orion spacecraft. The doll wears the new generation of space suits, which will be used in the future by the astronauts who will land on the moon (and maybe also on Mars). Throughout the flight, NASA will measure the force of acceleration and the vibrations that will be applied to the campus.
The Israeli Zohar and the German Helga
But the “commander” will not be alone of course: he will be joined by two astronaut dolls, the German Helga and the Israeli Zohar. While the Monikin Campus was designed to test the space suit and the pressures that would be applied to the astronauts in flesh and blood during the launch, Helga and Zohar were designed to test the special radiation vest of the Israeli company Stamrad with the support of the Israel Space Agency in the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology. Helga will not wear the vest – and Zohar will. If the German space agency’s sensors show that Zohar did absorb less radiation than Helga during the journey, it is possible that all the astronauts and astronauts of the manned Artemis missions will be equipped with Astro-Rad suits, and they will protect them in the event of a solar flare.
In the coming weeks, NASA will install Helga and Zohar alongside Commander Monikin Campus, the three brave dolls are expected to launch with a tremendous roar – not heard since the space shuttle program at least – from the Kennedy spaceport in Florida.
If all goes well, in 2024 the first manned flight of the SLS, Orion and Artemis in general will take off: four flesh and blood astronauts will be launched on a journey around the moon. Whereas in 2025 (a year after the original target set by the Trump administration) the time will come for the Artemis 3 mission – the mission that will return humanity to the moon.