With the “Canopée”, Bremen-based aerospace company Airbus Space is shipping the third service module for the European Space Agency (ESA). It is destined for the Orion spacecraft, which is soon to land on the moon.
The European service module “ESM 3” is currently on its way from Bremen to the American space organisation NASA in Cape Canaveral in the US state of Florida on the French, 121-metre-long rocket transporter with sail support “Canopée“. There, the module will be tested and assembled together with the crew module.
“Canopée” transports parts of the “Marianne 6”
The sea voyage of the “Canopée”, which is regularly used to transport parts of the “Ariane 6” launcher from Europe across the Atlantic to French Guyana in South America, is expected to take twelve days. ESA has already provided two European service modules for NASA: The first was used during the successful unmanned “Artemis-I” mission, and the second is currently at NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre for testing ahead of next year’s planned “Artemis-II” mission.
Service module supplies astronauts with vital resources
The module, which will power the Orion spacecraft during the “Artemis-III” mission to the moon, also supplies the astronauts with vital resources such as electricity and water, and controls the air temperature. It contains 11 km of cable, 33 motors, four tanks with 2,000 litres of fuel each, tanks with enough water and air for the crew during their mission and four seven-meter-long solar arrays that provide enough electricity for two households.
The module and its individual components arrived at Airbus Space in Bremen for assembly in October 2020. The parts came from over 20 companies from more than 10 European countries, a testament to the cooperation behind this project. Since the beginning of the year, the teams at Airbus Space have been installing the main engine of the service module. The engine has already completed nine missions, powering the Challenger, Columbia and Endeavour space shuttle orbiters. (CE)
