Transcription
The Aremis 2 mission is a test mission of the Orion space capsule. Artemis 2 will be the first time we put humans on this rocket. We're going back to the moon because it's the next step in our journey to Mars. We were always going to the moon.
Pushing ourselves to explore is just core to who we are. That's a part of being a human and liftoff. We shall return. Continuing to test out every bit of Orion. Coming back to Earth 7 miles a second. Humanity sets big goals. We can bring together genius from around the world. You have the best people on planet Earth putting this vehicle together. That's what's up. To innovate for the benefit of humanity and to inspire the world through discovery. And here we go.
Good afternoon and welcome to NASA's Johnson Space Center for our Artemis mission status update. We are joined today by Lisha Hawkins, deputy director for NASA's Aremis program, Jud Freeling, Artemis 2 flight director, and Howard Hugh, Orion program manager. We'll be taking questions from here in the room and through our phone bridge. But before we kick that off, we will go ahead and start with opening remarks. Lisha, go ahead.
Thank you and welcome to the third day of Artemis 2. We appreciate the continued interest from around the world in the mission and in our crew. Since yesterday's trans lunar injection burn to send the crew around the moon, the mission continues to perform well overall and the crew is in great spirits. Currently, the crew is more than 100,000 miles from the Earth and about 150,000 miles to go away from the moon. Uh, you know, Victor said that uh we call amazing things that humans do moonshots for a reason and indeed this is literally and symbolically our moonshot that we are in the middle of. You know, it's great to get some very clear video and images of the crew yesterday and the crew configured their cameras aboard Integrity and we have some of the latest images to share with you. If you could call up the first image, this first one we got to the ground shows the unique vantage point of the crew uh as they look back at the Earth. It shows a backlit Earth revealing auroras as the crew heads towards the moon. It was taken by Reed Wisman out of an Orion window and it features two auroras top right and left and bottom left and zodiacal light which is at the bottom right. It's visible as the earth eclipses to sun. You know it's great to think that with the exception of our four friends all of us are represented in this image. You could call up the next image please. This one shows Earth, as you can see, the terminator line. And Reed also took this photo after trans lunar injection burn yesterday. What an amazing shot that he shared with us here. So, we continue to learn all about our spacecraft as we operate in deep space with crew for the first time. And it's important to remind ourselves of that as we learn a little bit more day by day. So Jud, if you could talk a little bit more about details.
All right, thanks Lisha. Uh let's see. So uh when we last left yesterday after the trans lunar injection, uh the crew uh did some uh press conferences uh with media, they uh did a detailed inspection of their windows. Uh they also had uh planned medical conferences and uh in in while they were sleeping uh the ground did some uh looking at the uh crew module and service module a survey uh to just uh see how the that the vehicle is doing from an external view. Uh we also uh continued some uh op passes. So uh the optical comm u antenna that we have on board to downlink a high rate images uh we were able to do that overnight. Uh this morning when the crew woke up uh they had their normal planning conferences and then uh they were able to do uh their family conferences. So they were talked to their family and u they also did uh another u uh noise characterization of how how loud the toilet was. So they performed that. Uh we had planned today a trajectory correction burn uh for OTC1 is what it's called orbital uh trajectory correction. Uh the systems are doing so well navigation and propel propulsion systems together that that was not needed. So we'll roll that in to the next plan trajectory correction tomorrow. Uh and uh I'll hand it over to Howard to talk any specifics on the Orion systems.
Thanks Jud. Uh great to be here again. Uh let's see. Uh our subsystems continue to perform very well. Uh everything is nominal and uh as expected. So uh really good to report that today to you. Uh as Jud said uh we did the trans lunar injection uh yesterday and we get a chance to look at the data and uh the uh per propellant usage uh was within 5% of our predicted uh usage uh limits. So it was really good to see it go so well. Uh and the performance uh for that uh 5 minutes 57 50 seconds uh was uh outstanding. Uh let's see across other subsystems uh no issues uh relative to solar array and power generation. The uh air revitalization system is uh doing very well. We are scrubbing CO2 at very good healthy levels. uh we're keeping the humidity in the right range and uh uh the crew obviously you've seen um looks like they're enjoying their time in the cabin and across uh various other subsystems like I said earlier uh we're performing uh as expected or better uh in some cases now we do are working through uh one um issue with the with the SM prop uh in terms of pressurization so we have helium that pressuri pressurizes the propellant tanks basically pushes out the oxidizer and the fuel in order to make some of the major burns. And so we had to is had to shut off is isolate one of the branches. We have redundant branches in the system. No emission impacts. This is why we build redundancy in the system, but we're evaluating that. We're looking at that. Uh that's maybe something you heard on the loop relative to uh what we need to to isolate uh this particular branch. The second branch is ready to go. And when I say uh no mission impacts, uh we're able to uh perform the rest of the burns across the mission uh without doing any regulation, what we call blowdown mode. In other words, there's enough helium pressure in the tanks itself that we can push out the oxidizer and the fuel without needing to regulate or require more helium from the helium tanks. So overall, our redundant uh capabilities are uh providing the uh the coverage that we need as we move across uh the mission. Let's see. Uh yesterday also I think uh somebody asked this question but uh the crew was able to exercise and uh I I said yesterday I think we talked about a little about any performance implications on the guidance navigation control system and talk to our experts and uh there were no implications on that. So performed uh as expected in terms of uh what we thought the forces that would get imparted when uh the crew does the flywheel uh that we've addressed we addressed that very clearly through our uh design and uh I'm happy to see that performance held up very well. Uh let's see I have uh I guess my own couple images uh that Lkesha showed you some and I have a couple of my favorites. So, uh, the first one, uh, is just awesome to see from our spaceship out the window, our beautiful home planet, the Earth. Uh, I believe Reed took this picture and, uh, it just it just brings a lot of great emotion, uh, to me and to see see that picture being taken. I know there's a lot of other pictures that we're going to see that are just going to be outstanding and fantastic uh, to be able to enjoy. And then the second one, uh, I had not seen um, the crew uh, in a while. I've obviously heard them, but to see them in the interview. Um, I do believe I think Jeremy is too comfortable uh that way. I'm not sure he's working that hard, so I'm going to have to check to see if he's uh doing anything more than just laying there on the side here. But uh great to see the crew. Great to see their smiling faces and hear uh them talk about their experience already so far. And I can't wait to talk to them when they land home uh back Earth. And uh I think that's it for me today.
All right, thank you. we will go ahead and start our Q&A session. If you're in the room, please raise your hand if you have any questions and if you're on our phone bridge, please press star one. We'll start right here with Mark in the back.
Thank you very much. Hey, hello everyone. Good to see you all again. Mark Straman with CBS. Um, John, I want to ask you a question if if it's okay. You know, there are millions of Americans unlike people in this room who are just catching up with the fact that there's a moonshot going on this week. Who knew? Um, so I want to just sort of scoot ahead to Monday's milestone, the lunar flyby. Why does it matter? What do you hope to get out of it?
Uh, so it matters because uh, you know, the whole point is to go back to the moon. Whole point of this mission is a campaign to get back to the moon and uh, the the being able to see with human eyes the lunar surface uh, is a huge milestone, right? uh and and that just articulates the point, you know, that we're going back to the moon. We're going to stay there, right? And so this is this is the first step towards that. We'll obviously build upon that. We'll get eyes on the moon, uh, kind of map it out, and then uh continue to to to go back and uh in in force.
Yeah, I think u maybe I'll go next. I I think for us, I I'll just touch or follow on what Jud said, which is the building blocks. you know, we're building uh a transportation system and to have a reliable and robust transportation system, you need to test flight the transportation system and I think that's really important. We've demonstrated on Artemis 1 with uncrrewed capability. We've added a very important aspect of it which is the crude capability and that crude capability uh enables us to really understand how uh when we have people in the cabin, how the systems operate and adjustments we need to make. You hear a lot of these kinds of things that over the loop, you know, minor adjustments we need to do. Certainly, engineering uh expertise and and the design we put in has a certain understanding, but until you put people uh in the mix and you operate it and really understand what you need to do to operate in this kind of environment, uh you don't get that until you're in that environment. So I think that's really important.
Yeah. Part of what we're doing is the technical aspects and what we are learning from taking ourselves around the moon. The other part obviously is what you talked about which is capturing the imagination of people right and we have far more engagement uh than we uh had hoped to have and we hope that it will increase as we continue to take further and further steps into into this uh mission.
Okay, we'll take our next question here in the front and then Eric next.
Hi, Mark Kirkman with NSF. Uh this is probably for both Jud and Howard. I'm very fascinated like we just saw some imagery of the uh, the waste dump and I'm very fascinated with the prediction of needing the correction burns versus what's going to be the reality. I was wondering uh because there's so little available material on this on the subsystems at least publicly available material. Can you summarize the things other than the waste dump that uh would affect or perturb the trajectory? Uh what vents off of this uh vehicle as opposed to what we know from shuttle like fest dumps and stuff like that? And are you were you surprised that you didn't need this burn? Are we are tighter in the prediction than the is the reality tighter than the prediction was so far?
Yeah. So two parts to that question. Uh first so the the major contributor uh to uh dispersions is what we call them basically unplanned uh little tiny jets uh are the the carbon dioxide scrubbers. So they vent vent overboard, right? Vent the CO2 overboard. And so that's a nonp uh it's supposed to be a non-propulsive vent, but it is has some propuls propulsion to it just like the urine vent has a little bit of propulsion to it. So that causes minor uh trajectory deviations. Uh were we surprised that uh the orbiter correction or uh the trajectory correction was a no burn? No, not at all. I mean uh it's it's it's well within bounds. What happens really is um we have a threshold by which if the if the required uh correction is low enough uh that means that our fidelity on our lowest uh thrusting jets our uh reaction control system it's just not worth it right and so we'll just build up more uh errors and and and fix it on the next trajectory correction burn.
I think it's really good to see that we don't need these minor correction burns. Uh it shows that our navigation performance and our ability to get ranging has been outstanding and that uh these venting things whether it's wastewater or uh the life support CO2 venting uh doesn't cause the disturbances that are greater than what we would expect in terms of performance. And I believe uh I think we might have skipped maybe two I know we skipped one uh correction burn on Artemis one already. Uh and so it's not unexpected. Uh and so the flight control team gets an opportunity to determine when the delta V is very small uh whether we actually need to to uh execute that burn or not.
Okay, Eric, go ahead.
Eric Burgerer, RS Technica. Uh yesterday Howard, you made a comment about you wanted a little more humidity in the capsule, I think during the briefing, which as a Houston resident is always kind of funny to hear, but um you just now you mentioned that the humidity level was up and good. And maybe you could just talk about sort of the comfort in the cabin. I I think there have been some questions about temperature. So kind of what what temperature swings and what's the ambient temperature and sort of crew cabin comfort level?
Yeah, I'll let Jud start with the crew cabin temperature and I can follow up. Why don't we try that?
Yeah. So, um, we we had a cabin temperature that was um in the in the mid70s when we uh we first got on orbit and then we turned off uh some of the shell heaters um uh and and the the temperature dropped around about 65 degrees or so. Uh and then uh we we understood that the the crew was not comfortable at 65 degrees. So, uh, we turned some of those shell heaters on. We lowered some, uh, cabin fan speeds, uh, to try to adjust that. And we've gotten up into the to the, uh, low 70s, mid70s, uh, right now. And, and as far as, uh, humidity, um, I think Howard mentioned this yesterday, but, uh, the carbon dioxide scrubbers really actually want some, uh, you know, a good amount of humidity so that they work effectively.
Yeah. So, I'll answer, you know, we've got a lot of different kind of knobs to turn to enable the uh comfort level or temperature changes. Uh, for example, the pressure vessel heaters uh that Jud's talking about, we can go up to 85°. We don't we're not anywhere close to that yet. So, that's one knob. And we have other things where we could slow down the coolant loop uh speed as well in terms of how we trade the heat or the coolant that's necessary to go in the cabin as well. So, a lot of different options are available and um and overall, you know, keeping a steady uh state relative to humidity in the cabin allows us to make sure we get good readings also from the CO2 and the CO2 scrubbing associated with that humidity.
I do want to remind us though that this is a part of what we want to do. We want an opportunity to be able to exercise these knobs that Howard is referring to so that we have a good characterization of the system going forward. We understand the capability of the SCA spacecraft and its systems. This is what we want.
Yep.
Okay. We'll take our next question right here.
Thank you, Mark Cero with the Aviation Week in Space Technology. Uh, I wanted to refer back to the external survey you did with solar array cameras of the Orion and the service module just just to see if you saw anything initially of concern that would have been damage to the exteriors or it looks good.
Yeah, I I have uh I have not personally seen the the the photos from our survey. Uh I did watch it a little bit on TV as well. Uh but I have not heard anything that we're concerned about, Mark. Uh I think we will continue to go to fine detail and look at the pictures. Our our thermal protection system team is doing that right now. Uh and they'll give me a report out tomorrow morning uh and show me anything that they found uh relative to any damage. But uh we don't see anything relative to the back shell panels or anything like that that uh would cause anything of concern based on a preliminary understanding.
Okay, Jackie, go ahead.
Hi Jackie Waddles, CNN. Thanks for doing this. Um, quick question for Jud or Howard. Um, I understand that during the latest communication with crew, they were talking about mopping up some kind of leak with towels. I'm not sure I understood exactly what was going on. I'd love some insight there. Um, and then tomorrow, there's a couple of things on the schedule I'd love to hear more about with this, uh, manual piloting, uh, test flight test objective, uh, and a selfie moment. I'd love some insight into what's going on there. Thanks so much.
Uh sure. So, uh mopping up water. So, it's it's not uncommon for whenever they're filling drink bags uh for a little bit of water to come out. The particular incident I think you're uh that the crew was talking about likely was as we were filling uh the the uh, the contingency water bags. U whenever you whenever we had to fill them, there's a straw and a syringe and you put a, you know, towel around it to make sure water didn't come out. There's also uh a a feature of the port portable water dispenser such that when you turn the valve off, it still dribbles out water for a little bit. So that's those probably the couple things that they're talking about. Uh as far as tomorrow's uh objectives, manual piloting. Uh so we're going to uh do two different modes. Uh it's called six do and three do off. Six degrees of freedom and three degrees of freedom. Uh it's it's different u thruster modes of how much control that you have uh in in all the axises and translation. Uh so we're just going it's it's another test objective of how the the the vehicle handles um and selfie. I think that's probably a selfie of the the Orion vehicle with with the cameras.
Yeah. very similar to what we did on Armst One where we had I think the biggest selfie stick in the world and allowed us to take all those beautiful pictures. We were originally intended to have those solar array cameras do the do the survey that Mark was referring to that we did today. U but uh because we were performing so well that we were able to use one of the rays as a selfie stick and so that was terrific.
All right, we'll head to the phone bridge for a few questions. Our first question there is from Joseph Howlette with Scientific American.
Hi, Joseph Howlet here. Um, Scientific American. I'm curious about how the crew is fairing on board, what how their spirits are. I I was surprised that they only got to talk to their family now and uh how did those conferences go?
Yeah. So, we'll uh say a little bit about that. uh they are in great spirits uh and they are really excited about the opportunity to be there and what's going on. Obviously, they've been very very busy uh the first uh couple of days, especially leading up to uh translator injection. Uh but now uh that we've gotten through that, that's why there's been an opportunity for them to do things like have a conversation with their with their families. Uh and uh you know in terms of uh the the great things that are going on, they did get awakened this morning uh with a song called uh In a Daydream by uh the Freddy Jones band. So there's a lot of fun things going on in addition to a lot of hard work.
Okay, Our next question on the phone bridge is from Micah Maidenberg with the Wall Street Journal.
Hey, I just had a couple of quick ones for Jud. Uh Jud, I wanted to make sure I understood the the lunar science observation period. So during that six-h hour period is Orion, that's when Orion's traveling around the far side of the moon for the entire stretch of that uh or not. And do you know approximately when on Monday that 6h hour period begins like in Eastern or Central time? Thanks so much.
Yes, I can get that for you. Uh, as far as uh what we're doing, it's it's essentially when we start our uh uh closest approach to the moon, uh it's um the pretty much the entirety of that day, we'll be able to see the moon. And so what we're doing is we're uh doing visual observations, taking camera shots of the moon uh and uh and the like. Uh as far as um when we start it, uh it's going to be a UTC of uh around 18:30 uh UTC on the 6th. So, um subtract five, that's uh 13:30 central time and um and it'll be going on for for most all of that day, right? Because they'll they'll be at their closest approach uh and and pretty close thereabouts uh during that entire time.
Okay, we'll take one more question on the phone bridge and then back here in the room. Our next question is from Marcia Dunn with the Associated Press.
Oh, hi. Thanks for taking this. Um, probably for you, Jud. I um Noah just issued a geomagnetic storm watch G2 chronal mass ejection. Um, anyway, um, any I know you guys are watching this throughout the mission, but will the crew will this one it doesn't seem to be too bad, but will the crew be doing any precautionary measures because of this? And um same question from yesterday. What's the latest uh revised numbers for closest approach to the moon? Um all the numbers and distances. Thank you.
All right. Yes. So we do have uh our radiation uh specialists that monitor all of that stuff. And if if uh if any any of the sunspot uh coronal mass ejections happen from the sun, if they get to be uh a concern, then obviously we have mitigations, radiation shelters we can put up. We do not expect that from this one, but we are continually monitoring that. Uh, as far as the the updated numbers, I've got uh in statute miles uh should be uh 252,757 statute miles at our furthest uh distance from the Earth.
You're not going to convert that to nautical miles.
I I think Howard's got an app for that. Yeah. Okay, we'll take our next question right here. Go ahead.
Hi, Lauren Gretch from Bloomberg. Thanks so much. Um, I just wanted to go back to that Helium issue you were talking about earlier. You said you isolated that one branch. Just were wondering if there's any concern if the second branch that you're relying on now has a similar issue or is that redundancy you mentioned earlier? Would that kick in for this problem? And then I've just been listening to the the loops and it sounds like there have been various um I guess sensor issues or issues that are cropping up that don't seem to be an issue like there was a suspected cabin leak uh caution alarms that were coming on but then turned out to be false alarms. I'm just curious if you're sensing any pattern with that or is that just random glitches for a test flight like this?
Yeah, I'll start. Um yeah, the other second branch on the oxidizer side is performing very well. uh no issues there. Um, and so again that redundancy is there and I said earlier you know we do not need to regulate either on that line either for the rest of the burns. So I think both uh redundancy paths are in good shape. Um, I I would say and I'll let Jud maybe talk some specifics in general. Lkesha said earlier, you know, we're learning from this vehicle and uh the caution warnings are are based on, you know, limits and those limits are established uh jointly with the engineering team and the flight operations team. However, we have to operate in the environment. we have to you know account for variations and so I think sometimes uh we don't get it fully right and uh when we don't we uh we correct it and we'll make adjustments uh real time where we can and uh if we need to we'll make adjustments for the future as well once we get all the data so I think all those things are part of the learning that we are doing um and certainly good to keep the team on their toes uh and make making sure that uh we're not only watching the systems very carefully but we understand what the system is telling us and we're adjusting based on what we understand from the data.
Yeah. And and I'll add to that. Um, so it's important to remember on Artemis one, we didn't have a caution and warning system uh because we didn't have a crew on board that we needed to alert them about, right? And so um while we did measure, you know, all of the things we did, uh we obviously didn't have an ENK system on board either so that we knew uh what the behavior that was going to be. So I this is all part of exactly what Lkesha is talking about is this is this is learning this is learning how the vehicle operates uh with the the human system in the loop. Right.
Okay. We'll go to Bill next.
Hi Bill Harwood with CBS News. Um, this is a question I get asked a lot and I'm I realize that depends on who you ask how it gets answered but you know given all the Apollo missions the satellites that we've had around the moon at much lower altitudes than these guys are going to be at. Uh, the question I get is what what do human eyes really bring to this? Even if they've got nice cameras in their hands, they're a long way from the surface. I mean, 4,000 miles. What is this bringing that we don't already have from satellites and past missions? And I'm not saying that as a devil's advocate. I'm just I'm curious how you frame that in terms of the priorities of the mission. Thanks.
You want me first?
Start. Yeah. Um, so my understanding uh talking with the scientists is that uh your your eyes the human eyes can resolve uh details much better than taking a picture and then looking at the picture even with a telephoto lens. Uh and so uh that that observation that the scientists are looking for is really what's key even from as far as away as you mentioned you know you know 4,000 miles uh there are still things that the the human eye can pick up with granularity that are important to the science community. Now I can't talk about what those specific things that the science community is looking for um but that's my understanding. Yeah, I I think I'll try to maybe uh repeat what I said earlier when I tell people this and it's really purely from a spacecraft side. You know, when we talk about wanting to have a moon base, wanting to have people on the surface of the moon or other planets, you need a way to transport people safely to that particular domain. And to me it's very important that we do everything we can to understand and provide that capability in a robust and reliable way. And you have to walk before you can run. And I think this is very important in our step towards exploration is learning as we talked about earlier with all these questions relative to our subsystems. Learning about how the subsystems operate in space. How do we put people in space especially to the moon first? We haven't done that in over 53 years. This is a whole new generation of uh learning that we're trying to do. Certainly, we learned a lot from our Apollo uh I call giants, but we have our own learning to do and we're trying to be more capable and we're trying to provide um uh more numerous opportunities to go to the moon so that we can put people down on the surface.
All right, we'll take our next question right here. Go ahead.
Hi, Michael Atkus in Houston Public Media. I know you guys are all too familiar with the Apollo 8 comparisons to this mission. They obviously did their uh Christmas Eve broadcast and you know Sunday is Easter. We're in the midst of Passover and Ramadan even was a couple of weeks ago. Are there any plans to do any sort of um you know downlinks to mark the occasion or anything like that?
Um, there will be an opportunity obviously to hear from the crew and it will we will be uh having a conversation in terms of what they intend to share with us. um they are always inspirational uh in their communication with us and we're really looking forward to that.
Okay, we'll take our next question right here in the middle.
Hi, TJ Mascara with the Epoch Times. Thank you so much. Um, my question uh Howard, what um what specific things have exceeded uh your expectations in terms of u the Orion spacecraft?
Well, that's um interesting. I I would say that uh you know just how uh happy and how well trained the crew is and our teams are to just work through just minor issues that we've had. Um, you know to me it's not so much an exceedence of expectation. I expect that but just to see it in play just to see how well that's working out. Of course I expect our spacecraft to perform but you never know. Uh, this is why we have a flight test and it makes me very happy to see that although we have some minor issues to deal with the team operates very well with the crew both on the ground collectively between our mission evaluation room, our flight control team and with the crew together uh working together and of course the spacecraft is responding in a way that of course we knew about from Armis 1. every spacecraft is different but the process is the same the rigorous testing that we do and the analysis we do and so I I would say that it's always good to beat expectations.
Richard too with Richard too with the Post newspaper a question for Jud talking a little bit like a a different aspect of this so of the with the MCC can you talk about so many moving parts make this mission successful coming out of that department what's the tone and the consensus of the controllers the directors uh as they see this mission transpire and what are they thinking as far as how things are going so far in the mission?
Uh, so my sense is that there there's a lot of people that are a lot very excited, right? uh and excited not only uh for uh the the overall general uh you know objective that we're going back to the moon but also uh just from you know there's a lot of time that uh people have invested in in training for this mission developing the mission uh being able to uh work well with all of the teams together uh and to to see that come together I think there's a lot of excitement there uh and and and it shows. Going off that question, just curious, you know, the technology has changed so much in mission control from the Apollo days to Artemis. Is there anything that you all have learned during this mission? Have you made any changes in mission control? You know, we see the astronauts are making changes on the fly. I'm just curious to know if any changes are being made in mission control as well.
Yeah, I mean I think you you hear it uh in all of the the um funnies we see with sensors, the way they behave, uh the way the systems behave. Uh that means that we are all reacting to that and we are developing on the fly uh different ways than we originally thought how we would operate the vehicle. And so that is always an iterative process, right? And and I I I think you're seeing demonstration of that in real time that that we're iterating on not only learning about the the vehicle, but also how to iteratively operate the vehicle as well.
Okay, we'll take another question here in the room.
Yeah. Hi, Beverly Casillas for Space Scout. Thanks again for doing this. Uh two quick questions. Uh the first one, so we heard that the uh optical communications demo is already being used to uh downlink some imagery from the spacecraft. It sounds like that happened overnight. Are there any first are there any plans um to potentially do any transmission of live video during the mission? Uh and is that something we would get to see if so? Uh and then a second question um because it sounds like Orion's maneuvering has been really precise during the mission so far. Uh what are you hoping to learn during this mission about guidance and navigation and pnt in the lunar environment uh and is there anything that you're kind of already learning about that process?
So I'll take the first part. Uh for optical comm uh the way the trajectory is set up uh unfortunately the only passes that we have with Goldstone are when the crew is asleep. And so anything that we have down linked would be just you know video that you're already kind of seeing higher resolution of the of the spacecraft looking back at either the the the moon or the the Earth. Um uh and so for that purposes uh you know we're really going to just use it for high-res video downlink. Um, and then your second question.
I think I'll get I'll take the Can you repeat your second question? I think you said something. Pre my ears, guidance, navigation, control. So,
see,
yeah. Can you repeat that, please?
Yeah. I was just saying because we've seen how precise the kind of trajectory planning has already been with, you know, not needing to do this correction burn. Um, have you been having any learnings already about navigation and pnt um with the Orion spacecraft and like ground systems during this mission? And is there anything at the moon that you're also hoping to kind of learn and experience on that front?
So, um, you know, we're using, uh, very traditional navigation instruments. So, star trackers, the inertial, uh, measuring units I, uh, talked about yesterday. I think those are, uh, we expect them to precise. Uh, they're tried and trueue navigation instruments or sensors that are on a lot of spacecraft across the board. I think one of the things that uh we may have not talked about a lot is uh we have a capability on Orion to uh uh navigate without ground uh comm and that's the optical comm system and uh or I'm sorry optical navigation system and uh that's a camerabased system that uh gives you uh a really good enough uh knowledge navigation knowledge to be able to return the crew uh home and uh perform the mission. Uh and so that's something that's a new uh capability that we're very interested in. I know the navigation team is certainly very interested. We did do some testing on Artemis one and we learned a lot from that. We'll learn a lot from this because it basically takes pictures and and translate that size of the moon or the earth uh depending on which way you're pointed and can gives you navigation knowledge uh from that. So again, that's a that's a tool that uh uh we expect and of course uh as an old controls guy, you know, control systems uh ability to have um good latency or no latency potentially and ability to fire the jets when you need them. The combination jets you need them based on your offset uh center of gravity and where you are in terms of your mass properties are really a great knowledge across the board of understanding. We put a lot of effort into protecting for a lot of dispersions as Jud's talked about previously. Um, and of course uh when we encounter this those those dispersions uh being able to uh um control our spacecraft through them is really important as well. So all that will be learning. We will learn a lot even though we have very good instruments even though we know we have good control laws we've implemented algorithms. Um, every mission is a a great learning event and uh it's really great to see that the precision of of the work we put in is being replicated on orbit.
and and I would add to that u in addition as as good as the sensors are on Orion uh we still have to do ranging uh of the of the vehicle uh to update its state knowledge every once in a while. And so as a lessons learned from Artemis one, we have a new set of suite of tools on the ground that are able to to process that ranging data and also uh to hopefully what we're hoping to learn is to back out all of those uh you know uh minor dispersions from you know non-propulse vents that are a little bit propulsive. Uh so that we understand that and can characterize all of the error sources uh of the uh the navigation state. Okay, we'll take another question here in the room and then we'll go back to our phone bridge. Go ahead.
Thank you. Tak Malik with space.com. I think for Jud, there was discussion yesterday about how flight day 3 was a big change of pace for the crew after the the first kind of action-packed couple days. And I'm really curious how I know they had CPR demos today, they had lunar science preps today, how that change has gone. Uh, and then I know that tomorrow they've got some scheduled time, at least 20 minutes, to take photos of celestial bodies, and I'm just curious if it's not the Earth and the Moon, what else might they be taking pictures of out the window uh in their their personal time there? Thanks.
Yeah, I mean, I think you you probably saw in some of the the videos, the crew uh has a lot more time on their hands uh than they than they did in the first days. You we're able to to present them to you and and and have them talk uh to the media. As far as the pace, yeah, I I think you can probably tell from the down links that that the pace is is quite different than it was the first couple of days. As far as celestial, I mean, they're they're taking picture of stars and and and moon and sun, right? So, anything they can see that is of of interest.
Okay, we'll head back over to our phone bridge. Our next question is from David Denalt with About Space Today News. Go ahead.
I'm going to do a followup. Uh regarding uh the cabin temperatures uh has NASA to determine a desired temperature and a desired humidity and is there any relationship to that with the carbon uh dioxide?
Uh as far as the the desired cabin temperature, uh that is up to crew discretion, right? And so we're we're simply going off of what feels best to them as a consensus for the four members of the crew members. Um, and uh humidity, we have to have some amount of humidity. I think we we mentioned earlier for the uh carbon dioxide. We don't want it to be Arizona dry, I think is the the term term to use.
Um, we certainly want but we you know obviously the crew doesn't want it to be Houston humid either, right? So, um,
yeah, that that's about right. About
70s and about 25% somewhere around there.
Yep.
Yep. They're comfortable.
Okay, we'll take another question from our phone bridge. Our next one is from Allison McGrath. Go ahead.
Hi, Dr. Allison McGrath, mysterious meteorite. Congratulations on the continued success from the a giant leap for planetary science. My question is given the cruise training with the CLLO or crew lunar operations, what geology or image targets are first to be taken of during the lunar flyby? Thank you.
I think we heard your conversation about images supporting geology. Yeah. So the the crew is definitely going to be preparing themselves during the lunar flyby and during the time uh that they are going around the moon to take uh images. They are actually working now with the science team that has uh gotten underway um and they are doing preparations and working together to figure out what will be of interest and what they expect to see on flight day six. Um, and so that coordination continues as guided by our science team.
Okay, we'll go ahead and come back here to the room. If I can get a show of hands, how many more questions we have? Okay, we'll jump right over here.
We'll take a few on this side and then we'll come back over to this side.
Hello, Dan Lahan from the Naval Postgraduate School. Um, you've talked about this mission being uh a flight test program and an envelope expansion and with the importance of the International Space Station, can you maybe talk about how the systems um in Orion were originally kind of tested out prior to this mission in order to kind of um succeed?
Yeah, I'll I'll start with uh the universal waste management system or the toilet. Um, the same uh toilet uh was flown on space station. I think uh the crews there were able to operate it for roughly about two weeks if I remember and so that was a really good important test in a relevant environment uh against our toilet um that we would be able to fly to the moon with. So that's one piece. Uh I I don't think uh there's probably smaller equipment like for example the CO2 removal system. Uh the heart of it is these aman beads. They absorb CO2 and then we vent it out. uh the same technology is on the space station, different way how they approach it, but very similar in terms of absorbing and desorbing of the CO2 that comes from us humans. And that was also a really good uh foundation to stand on in our confidence associated uh with ability to remove CO2 although in a in a different manner on board our spaceship. So, those are two probably the big items that I would uh uh translate between what we've learned from space station and uh what we've applied for Orion.
Okay, we'll take our next question right here and then right behind you after.
Thank you. Uh Jonathan Siri with Fox News. I'm interested in the medical equipment on board. How did the CPR demonstrations go? How did the other demonstrations go? And then if you could explain avatar, I understand what it is, but I don't understand how the chips interact with the cell samples. If you could school me on that.
So they haven't done the CPR demo as of yet or at least as I started the conference. Uh so that's later on today. uh Avatar. So uh we don't have a science representative here with us today but as best I understand that Avatar is actually analog tissue samples from the crew members um and they have been brought on board and there's going to be an expectation that uh they'll be uh evaluating those samples uh for how they react uh to the environment while they are on this mission including uh reaction uh to exposure to radiation as well. Um, and so when it gets back, uh, we'll be very interested to understand what they learned both from the crew themselves as well as their avatars.
And Jonathan, if you need anything else on that, we can get it to you after the press conference.
Great. Thank you.
Robert Copinger, the British Interplanetary Society's Space Flight magazine. Um, do you have any information on the status of the Cubats that were deployed?
Sure. Um all four Cubats uh were successfully deployed uh on the planned timeline uh about
5 hours after launch. Um, there has been positive communication with two of the Cubat satellites, uh, the one from Saudi Arabia as well as the one from Argentina. Um, and then in terms of how they're faring, uh, you know, at this point, uh, it would definitely be best to, uh, reach out to the payload owners, uh, in terms of how they're doing, but they absolutely were deployed as expected.
>> Okay, we'll take another question over here and then we'll head back over to the right side of the room.
>> Hi, Katrina Miller from the New York Times. Um, any milestones we can expect for the rest of today? What are you three focused on for the latter half of day three?
Sure. Uh, as was previously mentioned, we had the we have the CPR demo. We'll have another press conference with the crew. U, they'll go look at their uh, do their medkit evaluations uh, of what they have on board. Uh, also u, we have as far as uh, com communications with the deep space network. We're going to test out again the emergency comm mode mode in a in a you know more more time more deliberate fashion and I believe Jeremy has a a press conference with uh uh so it's a CSA press conference and then some more planned medical uh conferences.
>> Okay, we'll take our next question from Will. Go ahead.
>> Hi Will Robinson Smith with Spaceflight Now. Thank you all for the time today. U question for Howard. It might be a little bit early to ask this, but from the performance you've been seeing in Orion so far on hardware and a software side, do you foresee any notable changes or updates to hardware or software for the Orion spacecraft that will fly Artemis 3 at this point besides the heat shield of course. Um, and then the the images that we've seen so far for whoever wants to take this um so far have come from Reed Wiseman. Don't know if that's just happen stance or you know if the other crew members are getting good pictures but will we see a variety of of the photography skills in the days to come? How how is that kind of being decided and divvied up at this point? Thanks.
>> I'll take your first question. I think walk even walking into this meeting I think or or this mission and hearing from you here um relative to just uh the software change we're talking about are going to be caution warning for sure. The limits that we put on we're going to learn a lot from this mission. So there's going to be I I call them software uh you probably don't think of them software but really data values for limits. So those will be changing for sure. Uh we have not seen any issues with our flight software uh the actual code itself. Um, of course we'll learn a lot more as we go forward next few days. Hopefully we'll not find nothing. Um, but uh we we don't uh we'll we'll make some adjustments if we need to for Artemis 3. Uh our software development is still a few months ahead of us in terms of completing it. We've got a lot of the software done already. Of course, we've got a lot of software from Artemis, too. Uh from a hardware perspective, uh there's a lot of learning. These uh I would say um minor issues that we've encountered and uh these isolation valves, etc. We're going to go check those out and try to get the root cause and if we have any things that uh impact our ability to fly arms 3, we we will work that.
>> Hey, Howard, why don't you also touch on the different camera capabilities to include the mobile c mobile phone cameras, etc.?
Yeah. So, from an image perspective, before uh maybe Jud talks about who's going to take pictures, uh if you if you might or might not know that uh we have iPhones on board uh for the crew members and they're able not only the the Nikon D5s and the Z9s that we have on board that we preloaded already, they were able to uh also take some iPhones as well. That's what Lkesha's referring to. And so, they'll get some great images from from all those cameras. And I'll let Jud talk about uh who gets assigned the best pictures. I don't know.
>> Yeah. I mean, I I think it's probably just happen stance that you've seen uh you know, Reed's pictures. Uh every one of them are going to be taking pictures. Uh and I'm sure once we get u you know are able to downlink uh all of the pictures, I think you will see a suite of pictures from all of the crew members.
>> Okay, looks like we have one more in the room. Do we have Okay, we'll go ahead and take one from you and then we'll head back over here. Thanks.
>> Hello, Ka Burgess from the Times of London. Um, with the loss of signal as they go behind the moon, is there any plan in the future to try and overcome that for future missions to try and use kind of satellites at Lrangee points or wherever it might be so that in future that communication behind the moon will be possible and you you will never be out of signal in the future. Obviously, it's been possible for Chinese missions that have landed landers on the far side. Is that something that you got you will be looking into?
So I I'll just mention as part of the administrator's ignition initiative uh he has talked about all kinds of different capabilities that we are going to try to add in a stepped approach to include capabilities on the surface on the moon as well as communication capabilities uh and relay capabilities will be absolutely a part of that for supporting us in the future.
Okay, we have another question right here. And do we have any additional questions after this one? All right, one last question in the room.
>> Thank you, Rod Pile at Astro Magazine. Um, similar question. How long do you expect the blackout to be during the flyby? And given that there's no burn back there, is there any reason to be chewing our pencils? And is there anything to learn from the timing when they come back out and you reacquire signal? Thank you.
Uh as to your second question, no there physics is takes over and uh physics will absolutely get us uh back to the back uh front side of the moon. Um, let's see. I don't think I have the timing yet on this uh for how long we're going to be out of commod. I I can get you that.
>> Uh is it about 40 minutes?
>> Yeah, it's it's around
>> somewhere in that vicinity. Mhm.
>> Yes, it's a it is 40 minutes.
>> All right. Well, it looks like that's all the questions we have for today. Thank you so much for joining. We'll see all of you back here again tomorrow at 4:15 for our next mission status briefing. As always, you can keep up with all the latest news and events during the Artemis 2 mission at nasa.gov. Thanks for joining.