ARTEMIS - Lunar Exploration & Colonization

Advantech Wireless Technologies has been awarded the opportunity to provide amplifier systems to support Artemis missions 2 and 3. We were already working with some of the special Near Space Network (NSN) frequencies, so we had a head start in providing exactly what was necessary to support launches and space craft communications. It was only after being selected to provide these solutions that I felt compelled to sniff around an see what I could learn about the program in general.

While muddling through the plethora of elements that comprise NASA's Artemis ambitions as a whole, I found it both fascinating and confusing. I think it's a bit striking that the media coverage of the program has been 'spotty' at best - mostly relegated to the launch failures and a series of crash landings by folks trying to place robots on the lunar surface - events that will someday be viewable via 8K video. I can't wait!

In order to gain some perspective, I found it necessary to visit dozens of websites, read numerous news articles (I even purchased an Artemis Missions book on Amazon) and piece together a glossary of acronyms and definitions to help me sort it all out (and even remember it the next day).

For anyone who's interested (and not already in the know), here's a snapshot of my discovery starting with an overview of the first three Artemis missions. Many more are planned, but likely won't be launched prior to my eventual admission to an assisted living facility (if I'm so lucky).

Artemis I

Artemis I was the first integrated flight test of an unmanned Orion spacecraft launched atop the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. This stage of the mission was to test Orion’s ability to operate beyond low Earth orbit and to test deep space navigation and communication systems. SLS sent Orion to a stable orbit around the moon followed by its return to earth. Splashdown occurred in December of last year.

It should be noted that, prior to the launch of Orion, NASA launched CAPSTONE, a smallsat that was sent and placed in a 'near-rectilinear halo orbit' designed specifically for the Lunar Gateway (more on that later). The initial 6-month mission was completed earlier this year, but it has enough fuel to continue operation for several more years. It will continue to gather information until it runs out of fuel and creates its own Lunar crater (hopefully viewable on the Discovery Channel).

Even before CAPSTONE, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) was launched to map the entire surface of the moon in high-resolution to help NASA plan for the future surface missions. See more details on the LRO later.

Here is some data on the next two Artemis Missions along with detailed descriptions of the components that will enable these future missions:

Artemis II

This crewed mission is intended to test Orion’s life support systems with four astronauts aboard, (hopefully it already worked during Artemis 1). Artemis II will demonstrate critical functions including mission planning, system performance, crew interfaces, and navigation and guidance beyond low Earth orbit. After launching, SLS will orbit the Earth twice, firing its engines to build up the speed to push it to the Moon. Artemis II will perform a lunar flyby, but won't touchdown on the surface. The entire mission will last approximately 21 days.

Artemis III

Artemis III is the second crewed mission of the program and the first to land Artemis astronauts on the Moon. The crew will visit the Moon’s south pole to search for water, study its surface, test technologies, and learn to work on a world outside Earth. The south pole was selected because it's always shadowed from the sun's rays. The potential for ice deposits makes it prime real estate for a permanent base.

________________________________________________________________

Below are some additional details of the program:

Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (Orion MPCV) is a partially reusable crewed spacecraft used in NASA's Artemis program. The spacecraft consists of a Crew Module (CM) space capsule designed by Lockheed Martin and the European Service Module (ESM) manufactured by Airbus Defense and Space. The European service module propels and powers the spacecraft and stores oxygen and water for astronauts. Capable of supporting a crew of six beyond low Earth orbit, Orion can last up to 21 days undocked and up to six months docked. It is equipped with solar panels, an automated docking system, and glass cockpit instrumentation modeled after the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. A single AJ10 engine provides the spacecraft's primary propulsion, while eight R-4D-11 engines, and six pods of custom reaction control system engines developed by Airbus, provide the spacecraft's secondary propulsion. Although compatible with other launch vehicles, Orion is primarily intended to launch atop a Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, with a tower launch escape system.

Orion was originally conceived in the early 2000s by Lockheed Martin as a proposal for the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) to be used in NASA's Constellation program. Lockheed Martin's proposal defeated a competing proposal by Northrop Grumman and was selected by NASA in 2006 to be the CEV. Originally designed with a service module featuring a new "Orion Main Engine" and a pair of circular solar panels, the spacecraft was to be launched atop the Ares I rocket. Following the cancellation of the Constellation program in 2010, Orion was heavily redesigned for use in NASA's Journey to Mars initiative; later named ‘Moon to Mars’. The SLS replaced the Ares I as Orion's primary launch vehicle, and the service module was replaced with a design based on the European Space Agency's Automated Transfer Vehicle. A development version of Orion's CM was launched in 2014 during Exploration Flight Test-1, while at least four test articles have been produced. Orion was primarily designed by Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Littleton, Colorado. As of 2022, three flight-worthy Orion spacecraft are under construction, with one completed and an additional one ordered, for use in NASA's Artemis program.

Orion uses the same basic configuration as the Apollo command and service module (CSM) that first took astronauts to the Moon, but with an increased diameter, updated thermal protection system, and other modern technologies. It will be capable of supporting long-duration deep space missions with up to 21 days of active crew time plus 6 months' quiescent spacecraft life. During the quiescent period, crew life support would be provided by another module, such as the proposed Deep Space Habitat. The spacecraft's life support, propulsion, thermal protection, and avionics systems can be upgraded as new technologies become available.

The Orion spacecraft includes both crew and service modules, a spacecraft adapter and an emergency launch abort system. The Orion's crew module is larger than Apollo's and can support more crew members for short or long-duration missions. Orion relies on solar energy rather than fuel cells, which allows for longer missions.

The Orion Crew Module (CM) is a reusable transportation capsule that provides a habitat for the crew, provides storage for consumables and research instruments, and contains the docking port for crew transfers. The crew module is the only part of the spacecraft that returns to Earth after each mission and is a 57.5° frustum shape with a blunt spherical aft end, 5.02 meters (16 ft 6 in) in diameter and 3.3 meters (10 ft 10 in) in length, with a mass of about 8.5 metric tons (19,000 lbs.). It was manufactured by the Lockheed Martin Corporation at Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. It has 50% more volume than the Apollo capsule and will carry four to six astronauts. After extensive study, NASA selected the Avcoat ablator system to provide heat protection encountered during reentry for the Orion crew module. Avcoat, which is composed of silica fibers with a resin in a honeycomb made of fiberglass and phenolic resin, was formerly used on the Apollo missions and on the Space Shuttle orbiter for early flights.

Orion's CM uses advanced technologies, including:

• Glass cockpit digital control systems derived from those of the Boeing 787.
• An "auto-dock" feature, like those of Progress, the Automated Transfer Vehicle, and Dragon 2, with provision for the flight crew to take over in an emergency. Prior US spacecraft have all been docked by the crew, with the exception of Dragon 2.
• Improved waste-management facilities, with a miniature camping-style toilet and the unisex "relief tube" used on the Space Shuttle.

The CM is built of aluminum-lithium alloy. The reusable recovery parachutes are based on the parachutes used on both the Apollo spacecraft and the Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Boosters and constructed of Nomex cloth. Water landing is the exclusive means of recovery for the Orion CM.

To allow Orion to mate with other vehicles, it will be equipped with the NASA Docking System. The spacecraft employs a Launch Abort System (LAS) along with a "Boost Protective Cover" (made of fiberglass), to protect the Orion CM from aerodynamic and impact stresses during the first 2 1?2 minutes of ascent. Orion is designed to be 10 times safer during ascent and reentry than the Space Shuttle. The CM is designed to be refurbished and reused. In addition, all of Orion's component parts have been designed to be as modular as possible, so that between the craft's first test flight in 2014 and its projected Mars voyage in the 2030s, the spacecraft can be upgraded as new technologies become available.

LunaNet

LunaNet began its life at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland with a cross-functional team of networking, navigation, science, and systems engineering experts building upon previous NASA and international activities. From this foundation, agency-wide experts came together to refine the proposal and develop draft interoperability standards. LunaNet is now being led out of the Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program office.

Lockheed Martin recently announced the creation of Crescent Space Services LLC, a subsidiary that will offer a service called Parsec - a network of satellites placed into lunar orbit to support communications with spacecraft also in lunar orbit or on the surface. Parsec will use satellites designed and built by Lockheed Martin, using a bus called Curio that it developed for NASA’s Janus and Lunar Trailblazer smallsat missions – built to LunaNet’s interoperability standards. The first satellites are scheduled for launch in 2025.

Near-Rectilinear Halo Orbit is an orbital track that was designed to facilitate a 15-year sustained orbit that requires minimal station keeping – specifically for spacecraft placed into a lunar orbit. The name comes from the fact that the orbit passes over the Moon's north pole at an altitude of 1,900 miles and over the south pole at an altitude of 43,000 miles. This path minimizes orbital decay that would result from the gravity fields of the moon and earth. One of the main missions of Artemis I (CAPSTONE) was to test and confirm this orbital track.

CAPSTONE (Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment) is a lunar orbiter designed to test and verify the calculated orbital stability planned for the Lunar Gateway space station. The spacecraft is a 12-unit CubeSat that will also test a navigation system that will measure its position relative to NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) without relying on earth-based ground stations. It was launched on 28 June 2022, arrived in lunar orbit on 14 November 2022, and was scheduled to orbit for six months.

On 18 May 2023, it completed its primary mission for six months, but will stay in NHRO orbit and continue to perform experiments during an enhanced mission phase. The main objective of the CAPSTONE mission is to verify the theoretical orbital stability simulations with an actual spacecraft. CAPSTONE is the first spacecraft to operate in an NRHO.

The Lunar Gateway is an in-development space station being planned by several national space agencies since at least 2018, including NASA, European Space Agency (ESA) and Canadian Space Agency (CSA). The Gateway is planned to be placed into NRHO orbit, where it is expected to serve as a communications hub, science laboratory, short-term habitation module, and holding area for rovers and other robots. Gateway is slated to play a major role in future Artemis missions.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is a NASA robotic spacecraft currently orbiting the Moon in an eccentric polar mapping orbit. Data collected by LRO has been described as essential for planning NASA's future human and robotic missions to the Moon. Its detailed mapping program is identifying safe landing sites, locating potential resources on the Moon, characterizing the radiation environment, and demonstrating new technologies. LRO was the first United States mission to the Moon in over ten years.

The probe has made a 3-D map of the Moon's surface at 100-meter resolution and 98.2% coverage (excluding polar areas in deep shadow), including 0.5-meter resolution images of Apollo landing sites. The first images from LRO were published on July 2, 2009, showing a region in the lunar highlands south of Mare Nubium (Sea of Clouds). As of 2019, LRO had enough fuel to continue operations for at least seven more years, and NASA expects to continue utilizing LRO's reconnaissance capabilities to identify sites for lunar landers well into the 2020s.

The Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) constellation, managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, consists of a number of geosynchronous (GEO) satellites (first generation, second generation and third generation satellites) distributed over the Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean and Indian Ocean. They provide near continuous bent pipe information relay services to over 25 missions like the Hubble Space Telescope, the International Space Station and many of our Earth-observing missions like Global Precipitation Measurement, Terra and Aqua.

TDRS comprises the space segment of the government-owned portion of the Near Space Network. TDRS can provide near-constant communication relay links between its ground facilities (located in White Sands, New Mexico and Guam) and orbiting satellites below geosynchronous orbit.

The Launch Communications Segment was commissioned by Goddard to support the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System (SLS), which will be the most powerful rocket in the world.?The Kennedy station, alongside companion stations Ponce De Leon and Bermuda, facilitate communications for launch of Artemis missions to the Moon.

Each station in the Launch Communications Segment provides a complementary view of Orion and SLS during launch. For the space shuttle, all three data streams were sent to end users, even though data from one station was always better than the others at different times during the flight. This made operations more complex. Now, the segment merges data from the three stations into one clear stream to mission controllers, simplifying operations and reducing costs.

Lunar Exploration Ground Sites (LEGS) - NASA plans to implement three new ground stations that will provide near-continuous communications support to missions up to two million kilometers from Earth through NASA’s Near Space Network. These stations will be critical to the success of NASA’s Artemis program, providing needed and enhanced direct-to-Earth communications capabilities to lunar missions. LEGS is to be comprised of three 18+ meter earth stations, the first of which will be constructed in White Sands, NM. The other sites are not yet decided, but 120 degree separation between the locations will be necessary for 24 hour service.

The main goal of the LEGS program is to separate NSN services from the Deep Space Network (DSN). As the number of lunar missions grows, NASA will need new infrastructure that can support Artemis, while the DSN focuses on missions at Mars and farther into the solar system. White Sands is estimated to be operational in 2025. The remaining sites may be sourced in the form of services contracts from commercial companies already experienced in Near Space operations.

It's amazing to see the sheer number of people, agencies, companies and even countries that are engaged in Artemis. Though NASA and ESA basically run the show, much of the heavy lifting will be performed by commercial companies acting presumably in cooperation with NASA or ESA. That doesn't prevent someone from acting autonomously. One can assume that a land grab will ultimately ensue, since the entirety of the surface of the Moon is basically Death Valley, except for the south pole.

A document called the Artemis Accords was drafted and ratified in 2020 to establish a protocol of cooperation to be shared by anyone engaged in Lunar exploration. One of the main reasons for the Accords is to prevent one player's mission from contaminating another. Most countries with any hope of sending anything to the moon in one piece have already signed up.

A number of recent attempts by various players to land robots on the moon's surface have failed, most citing communications failures during the final stages of landing. Those attempts are ongoing. The information contained in this article barely scratches the surface of what's going on in labs and factories around the globe in support of Artemis. It has certainly piqued my interest.