{"id":21281,"date":"2026-02-10T00:39:46","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T16:39:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/the-european-hardware-powering-artemis-2s-journey-around-the-moon\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T00:39:46","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T16:39:46","slug":"the-european-hardware-powering-artemis-2s-journey-around-the-moon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/the-european-hardware-powering-artemis-2s-journey-around-the-moon\/","title":{"rendered":"The European hardware powering Artemis 2\u2019s journey around the Moon"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\t\"\"Image: Steven Madow \/ Space Explored<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\tImage: Steven Madow \/ Space Explored\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When people picture Artemis 2, the first human flight to the Moon in more than 50 years, they usually visualize Orion\u2019s cone-shaped crew capsule riding atop NASA\u2019s Space Launch System, the American heavy-lift rocket that gets it off the pad in Florida. But once Orion is in space, the mission quickly becomes a story of international systems engineering, with one of the most critical pieces being European-built.<\/p>\n

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Airbus, serving as the prime contractor for the European Space Agency, built Orion\u2019s European Service Module, often described as the spacecraft\u2019s \u201cpowerhouse.\u201d On Artemis 2, the ESM will supply propulsion, electrical power, water, oxygen, and thermal control, enabling a four-person crew to survive and operate during a roughly 10-day lunar flyby mission.<\/p>\n

Power, propulsion, and survival <\/strong><\/h2>\n

Think of the ESM as Orion\u2019s combined engine room and life-support trunk. It has four solar array wings, each about seven meters long, generating roughly 11 kilowatts of electricity. This is enough to run spacecraft systems continuously and keep the crew module supplied with power in deep space. <\/p>\n

The service module houses 33 thrusters and engines \u2013 24 reaction control thrusters, eight auxiliary engines, and one primary engine \u2013 that handle everything from fine course corrections to the major burns that shape the lunar flyby and set up Orion\u2019s return to Earth. And because deep space is brutal on hardware, the ESM also manages thermal control, helping keep Orion\u2019s habitable volume within operational temperature ranges. <\/p>\n

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