First stage Artemis Program leaves without a crew. Well, at least without a human crew, well, very curious crew members will be lucky: three mannequins. Baptized as Munikin Campos, Helga and Zoharthey will have a much more important mission than it seems: measure radiation that their flesh-and-blood companions will have to endure.
Let’s not forget that this will be the first time in over 50 years that humans have traveled this far from Earth. Cosmic radiation levels will be very different from those supported in international space station. Therefore, it is important to be prepared. In fact, dummies will carry more than just radiometers. One of them, Munikin Campos, will also test the suit.
All this could be done without dummies, it’s true. However, if SpaceX can deliver a stuffed dinosaur to the International Space Station or launch a Tesla into space with a dummy on board, that NASA and other Artemis partners send your ship with three dummies on it and it should look quite normal now.
The danger of radiation
Though this time the ship won’t arrive until moon surfaceit will remain in orbit around it, exactly where it will be attached to the Gateway Orbiter in the future to facilitate the astronauts’ subsequent descent.
This will give you a rough idea of the radiation they will have to withstand. And the fact is that the moon is very open for both cosmic rays How solar flares. This is due to the high doses of radiation that can penetrate tissues and damage the DNA of astronauts. Fortunately, no one who traveled to the moon between 1969 and 1972 died of causes that seemed to be related to this phenomenon. However, the Artemis program places great importance on preventing this. After all, your goal is to set up bases on the moon and those long stays can be a problem. That is why the role of these three dummies is so important.
Three dummies that will give way to astronauts
commander this first phase of Artemis will be Munikin Campos. Yes, we agree that the mannequin cannot command anything, but it will be the one who sits in the commander’s chair and, moreover, is dressed in a spacesuit. The first part of his name comes from a logical pun between the English terms “Moon” (moon) and “Dummy” (dummy). As for the surname, it was assigned in honor of Arthur FieldsNASA engineer who worked on the development of electrical systems for the Apollo program and played a key role in resolving an emergency that could destroy Apollo 13.
Two of his comrades do not occupy such a high position, but they play a very important role. And that’s what Helga and Zohar they will carry the most weight of the radiation meters. While the commander will carry only two internal radiation sensors, along with other sensors located in the vibration measurement seat, his two satellites will carry 6000 passive radiation detectors and 34 active radiation detectors.
Counted from space.comboth are part Radiation experiment “Matroshka AstroRad” (MARE), an international research partnership between the German Aerospace Center, the Israel Space Agency and NASA. And while they won’t be wearing Munikin Campos’ suit, the Zohar will be wearing some very important gear. In particular, a vest designed to get out of the ship’s shelters in conditions of intense radiation. There will be nothing on Helga, so the goal is to compare the radiation reaching each of them.
So it’s not just a game that mimics the first phase of Artemis with a crew. These three dummies have a mission and they know how to complete it. Well, at least the scientists who designed them know about it.
Source: Hiper Textual
