Go Artemis! NASA’s Quest for Life Beyond Earth!

Ardishir Rashidi-Kalhur | Exclusive to iKurd.net
President of RDI Engineering, Upland, California.

“This article is dedicated in honor of Jina Amini a Twin Sister of Lady Liberty, whose act of courage ignited the women liberation movement in Iran and around the world”.

Big, Bold and Beautiful! Is how NASA’s Artemis-I and its mission to the Moon can be described. Millions of expectant souls and space enthusiasts around the world were watching today on November the 16th, 2022 at 1:47 a.m. as NASA’s Artemis-I Spacecraft standing tall and prominent at the historic launch-pad complex 39B of Kennedy Space Center, was successfully lifted up to make its historic and momentous ascent toward the moon.

Described as the America’s grandest new achievement in space exploration, Artemis I, smoothly powered its way, high up in to the thin air along its sinuous path to the moon before the very eyes of her esteemed and humble makers much to the delight and wonder of admirers all around the world, as well as hundreds of thousands present on site at and the surrounding areas near Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

NASA launches Artemis I, November 16, 2022. Photo: NASA video/youtube/via iKurd.net

It truly was a historic moment, demonstrating a vigorous and renewed determination by the leadership of the United States, to not only go back to the moon, but also, incredibly, with future missions, endeavoring to go even further to the outer planets of deep space.

A brief, inspirational and uplifting moment of the collective human spirit had been brought about by precise scientific computations involved in all areas of interdisciplinary science and engineering process, in both analysis and design phases. Also of tremendous note is the advanced and state of the art manufacturing techniques employed and the painstaking integration and testing the entire Artemis System underwent before the final countdown was reached, ultimately ensuring its readiness to launch. All these took place under the unmatched organizational management, technical sophistication, and vast intellectual resources on hand at NASA, all while being conscious of safety and budget and accommodating for a prudently delayed launch schedule to make this great American goal to become a spectacular reality witnessed the world over.

The Artemis Program, which has officially been in the making since 2017, was preceded by the Orion Exploration Flight Test-I (EFT-I). The EFT-I was built by the Lockheed Martin Corporation, and it was they who made possible the delivery and launch of the capsule atop a Delta IV heavy rocket successfully on December 5th, 2014. The EFT-1 Orion capsule orbited the earth approximately 3600 miles above the Earth’s surface in order to confirm the EFT-I Crew Module’s structural integrity and its performance functionalities. Also tested were its sophisticated state of the art flight navigation and communications systems. Sensing, measuring, and control, of its short mission during its flight path as well as its safe reentry amid exposure to very high heat (4000 °F) and high velocity (over 20,000 miles per hour) were the proof positive of the project’s feasibility; this was the proven benchmark, the pivotal data needed for today’s flight of the Artemis I to the moon.

Ardishir Rashidi Kalhur with Bill Nelson — Ardishir Rashidi-Kalhur President of RDI Engineering (L) with the NASA Administrator, former Senator Bill Nelson. OSB II at Kennedy Space Center, Florida, U.S., September 3, 2022. Photo: ARK/handout to iKurd.net

Although Artemis I is an unmanned spacecraft, it will lead the way for the flight of the Artemis II, crewed by four astronauts, to further study the lunar surface and in particular the south side of the Moon for the existence of frozen water. The information gained from data collected by both Artemis I and II will be further used to prepare the flight of the Artemis III, planned to land the first woman on the surface of the moon by as early as 2025.

The choice of the date and timing of the launch, the flight path, the Earth-Moon orbital relation and the duration of the Artemis I mission, its purpose and its safe reentry and return back to earth, all require scrupulous analysis and precise science of time-event punctuality.

The rocket’s Launch Complex, 39B, is designed, built and operated by the Exploration Ground Support (EGS) under the management of Jacobs Engineering. The EGS can be described as an Earth- based spaceport, like airport-to-airport travel functions here on earth, a place from where future flights to spaceports on the Moon and other planets will one day take place. We are witnessing the beginnings of a real-world version of Gene Roddenberry’s original Star Trek series, where humans traveled in interstellar spaceships in order to explore the Milky Way Galaxy and “To Boldly Go Where No Man Has Gone Before”.

The flight duration of the Orion Capsule to the Moon and back will be about 25-and-a-half days in length, (this is the un-crewed module of the Artemis-I System which was built by Lockheed Martin, and its companion called the Service Module built by the European Space Agency ESA). During this time it will have traveled an estimated 40,000 miles beyond the Moon. Its return to Earth is scheduled for Sunday, December 11, 2022, to splash down in the Pacific Ocean where it will make touchdown, gently, in the water after deploying a series of large and strong parachutes.

After the liftoff, a sequenced series of events took place. These began with separation of the Solid Booster Rockets at 2 minutes and 12 seconds, then the jettison of the Emergency Launch Abort System in 3 minutes and 19 seconds and then finally separation of the Core Stage Rocket after 8 minutes 16 seconds.

What remained was the Upper Stage, Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS) which pushed the Orion Crew & the Service Modules out of Earth’s orbit, speeding toward the moon. On future flights of the Artemis, the ICPS will be replaced by the Exploration Upper Stage (EUS). Once having left the Earth’s orbit and soundly on its way to moon, the Orion Capsule will enter two hazardous radiation zones called the Van Allen Radiation Belt.

These donut shaped zones around the earth are places where the Earth’s magnetic field traps most of the incoming cosmic and solar radiation and prevents them from reaching the earth. Roughly estimating, the inner zone starts from about 1000 miles and extends to 7500 miles wide, and the second zone starts from 8000 miles and goes out to 37000 miles, through which the Orion Capsule and its future Crew will have to travel. Since the Artemis I is an un-crewed mission, there will be instead three ‘Moonikins ’to test and record flight data. These advanced mannequins will be instrumented to carefully monitor the specially designed astronaut suits and the environmental conditions inside the Orion Capsule, specifically, within the Environmental Control and Life Support System (ECLSS) in order to measure the amount of radiation dosage received and possible health effects on future human astronauts on board the Artemis II onward. The information obtained will be critically useful on future missions.

Once, having reached its destination, the Orion will carefully insert itself into the Moon’s orbit approximately 62 miles above the lunar surface, ride around the moon, only to be sling shotted away, changing the orbit’s elevation by as much as 40,000 miles away from the moon by traveling in a retrograde motion (traveling around the moon opposite than moon rotation about its own axis).

During its orbital rotation, a careful study of the south side of the Moon, which is the side of the Moon opposite to Earth’s face and heretofore unseen by humans, will be extensively studied for the presence of any frozen water. Confirmed existence of water will significantly increase the likelihood of generating sustained oxygen and hydrogen by process of electrolysis to make fuel, and by recombining them, to make water, which will, in theory, make living on a moon camp one day possible.

After days of orbiting the Moon, the Orion and its companion the Service Module will perform complex orbital transfer maneuvers and will then begin racing home, here, toward the Earth. Just before its reentry into Earth’s atmosphere, the Service Module, which will have provided all the necessary supplies, the fuel, the energy and provisions needed for the journey, will separate from the Orion Capsule, and simply burns up during reentry.

What will endure is the Orion Crew Module. It will survive reentry by means of its exceptionally advanced honeycombed thermal heat shield designed, tested, and manufactured by Lockheed Martin, and will face upwards of 5000 degrees Fahrenheit, reaching a reentry speed of up to 25000 miles per hour.

Once entering the Earth’s atmosphere, the Orion’s giant parachutes will be deployed, enabling the spacecraft to safely splashdown in the Pacific Ocean near San Diego where a Navy ship will recover the Orion for transport to designated NASA facility for multiple post-mission studies.

From the launch pad to splash down back on earth, the Artemis-Orion will have traveled 1.3 million miles roundtrip around the moon which will be a journey of about 25-and-a-half days of unprecedented discoveries to watch and to follow on NASA.gov, under the Artemis Program.

Next on NASA’s agenda is to build a Sustaining Lunar Gateway an orbiting platform, similar to the International Space Station, that will orbit the moon for future docking of Artemis spacecrafts in order to one day facilitate the building a permanent base on the lunar surface.

(For further information on the major segments and key important prime contractors to NASA responsible for building the Artemis stack, read on this website a related article titled “We Are Going! Destination Deep Space” )

“Mission Critical Components Designed and Manufactured by a Kurdish Owned Company are on board of the Airtimes Spacecraft”

Ardishir Rashidi-Kalhur, President of RDI Engineering, Upland, California, and the President of Kurdish American Education Society, Los Angeles, U.S.

The opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of iKurd.net or its editors.