Thursday, November 28

NASA Astronauts Test SpaceX Elevator Concept for Artemis Lunar Lander

Lee Mohon

Dec 21, 2023

NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Doug “Wheels” Wheelock took part in a current test of a sub-scale mockup elevator for SpaceX’s Starship human landing system that will be utilized for NASA’s Artemis III and IV objectives to the Moon. The Starship human landing system will bring 2 astronauts from the Orion spacecraft in lunar orbit to the surface area, work as an environment for team members’ roughly one week remain on the Moon, and move them from the surface area back to Orion.

The elevator will carry devices and team in between Starship’s habitable location, situated near the top of the lander, and the lunar surface area, as they leave for moonwalks. The test enabled the astronauts to engage with a flight-like style of the elevator system, acting as both a practical presentation of the hardware and offering the opportunity to get important feedback from a team point of view.

Constructed at SpaceX’s center in Hawthorne, California, the elevator mockup has a full-blown basket area with working mechanical assemblies and team user interfaces for screening. Throughout the presentation, NASA astronauts used spacesuits that imitate the fit size and movement restrictions that team will deal with on the Moon. For Artemis III, the team will use brand-new innovative spacesuits being established by Axiom Space.

The matched team offered feedback on elevator controls, such as gate locks, ramp implementation user interfaces for moving into and out of the elevator basket, readily available area for freight, and vibrant operations while the basket moved along a vertical rail system.

NASA is working to land the very first lady and very first individual of color on the Moon under Artemis to check out more of the lunar surface area than ever previously and prepare to send out human beings to Mars for the advantage of all. The human landing system is an important piece of deep area expedition architecture, in addition to the Space Launch System rocket, Orion spacecraft, advanced spacesuits and rovers, and the Gateway in orbit around the Moon.

Find out more about Artemis:

https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/artemis

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