Low-Cost Mission Opportunities Using Re-Purposed Artemis European Service Modules

Kurzfassung

The European Service Module (ESM) is the element of NASA’s Artemis Program that returns the Orion Crew Module to Earth (Fig. 1). After separation of the Crew Module, the current plan is to destroy the ESMs by burning them up in Earth’s atmosphere. However, the ESM is a capable spacecraft, complete with propulsion, power generation, conditioning and distribution, attitude control, thermal control, and payload support. By leveraging the propulsive capabilities that remain following Crew Module separation, the ESMs have the potential to provide near-term, low-cost opportunities on a notionally yearly cadence to achieve valuable science across an array of extended mission types.