by S. Prasad Ganti

More than five decades after the last Apollo flight and three years after the unmanned Artemis I flight to the moon, Artemis II went to the moon along with four astronauts and came back successfully with a splash in the ocean. The spacecraft was not meant to land on the moon. Literally a “round trip” by slinging around the moon and heading towards the earth.   

The Artemis series is not a repeat of the Apollo missions. Although both are three stage rockets, Artemis differs vastly from its twin sister Apollo. It is comparatively newer technology. The rocket itself has 4 RS25 engines, compared to five F1 engines on Saturn 5 powered Apollo. The RS25 engines are from the space shuttle era. Two solid rocket boosters are added to the initial thrust. The electronics and computers are far more advanced.   

The life support systems are a key component differentiating a manned flight from an unmanned one. The living room in the Orion module for the astronauts is more spacious even with four astronauts instead of three for the Apollo. It even has a toilet ! One of the Astronauts, Christina Koch,  became the first plumber in space to fix the toilet which malfunctioned initially.   

The propulsion and life-support systems in the Orion spacecraft were built by European aerospace company Airbus on behalf of ESA. The picture shown below courtesy ESA shows the components. On the left in the picture is the service module containing the propulsion and life support systems. It has four solar panels.  On the right is the Orion spacecraft built by Lockheed Martin.