NASA’s Artemis mission to test Israeli radiation vest

Between 3:30 and 5:30 pm Israel time today, the Israeli female mannequin “Zohar” was supposed to lift off for a course looping around the Moon in NASA’s uncrewed Artemis mission. In the event, the launch was postponed due to a fault in one of the rocket launcher’s engines.

The long-term purpose of Artemis is to put human beings back on the Moon, and to set up a human colony there and make it a way-station for manned missions into deep space, in particular to Mars. In many ways, this is the fulfillment of the dream of Buzz Aldrin, who was a member of the Apollo 11 crew that landed on the Moon 53 years ago. In recent years, Aldrin has pressed for a breakthrough in space exploration to Mars via the Moon. According to the theory that has become accepted wisdom at NASA over the past decade, landing on the Moon for refueling and resupply will be vital in a manned mission to Mars.

What is special about Zohar, Israel’s contribution to the space mission, is the protective vest against radiation in which it will be clothed, for the purposes of scientific experiment. The vest, developed by StemRad, has the most space mileage among the competing protective vests in the Artemis mission, and if its ability to filter out cosmic radiation is proven, it stands a very good chance of becoming the official vest for NASA’s manned space missions. It’s uniqueness lies not just in its ability to protect against radiation, but also in the comfort and ergonomic structure that it offers in comparison with the vest currently in use at NASA. The vest was tailor-made to fit Zohar, and not by chance: NASA plans to land a first woman astronaut on the Moon in 2025, and rewrite the historic declaration from the Apollo mission “For all mankind”, with its connotations of exclusion of women.

To the Moon and beyond

The Israeli vest could be used on a mission to Mars. Besides the extremely low temperature (-65 degrees Celsius), spending time on the planet Mars would be dangerous because of the cosmic radiation from the Sun, which is liable to weaken the body and cause cancerous diseases. On Earth, the radiation is far lower than on other planets in the Solar System because of the protection provided by the atmosphere and the magnetic field.

The vest is currently designed for being on the Moon, where the measured radiation is 200 times that on Earth, but it could also withstand the radiation on Mars, which is immeasurably higher than on the Moon, because of the simple fact that Mars is closer to the Sun.

Cooperation between NASA and DLR

The German space agency, DLR, is also a partner in the trial. It supplies the radiation detectors that will compare the Israeli mannequin Zohar, protected by the vest, with another mannequin, called Helga, which will be launched on the spacecraft without a vest.

Artemis has a launch vehicle made by Boeing carrying an Orion spacecraft made by Lockheed Martin. Weather permitting, it will be launched this afternoon on a course taking it around the moon and will return to Earth with the two mannequins and the protective vest by October 10.

“This is a collaboration between the Israel Space Agency, which is part of my ministry, the German space agency, and NASA, following a government decision that I proposed to approve the Artemis agreements. This is a very ambitious initiative, to put human beings on the Moon and on Mars,” said Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology Orit Farkash-Hacohen.

Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on August 29, 2022.

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