Citizen Sian Cleaver, a 36-year-old engineer from Chelmsford teams up with David Morris, a 65-year-old chief engineer at Teledyne e2v. Collectively, they’re behind a historic mission, launching later this week, that will change that. This ambitious mission will carry four astronauts around the Moon, marking the closest humans have approached the lunar surface since 1972. The mission is the first crewed flight in NASA’s Artemis II program and will last ten days.
Cleaver now lives in Germany, where he is employed by Airbus. He was instrumental in creating the crew module’s propulsion system on NASA’s Orion spacecraft, which carried Artemis I’s astronauts into this historic mission. Her mission control team in Bremen was key in creating the European Service Module. This module features solar arrays the size of a football field that will buoy the spacecraft through its long journey.
Morris has a technical background in space imaging equipment. He emphasized the mission’s importance not just for scientific progress but as a unifying leader of the world. As he explained, “Looking back at 1969, we saw the transformational moment of men landing on the Moon. I want us to create that kind of global excitement when it happens again.” It will serve to awaken the world’s collective imagination to be more ‘worldly’ – as in ‘the world’ – instead of just a bunch of individual countries.
As the excitement for Artemis II to be building Cleaver told the panel she could not be more optimistic about getting back into human spaceflight. She remarked, “I always wanted to work in the space industry and now I am doing that on a human space flight mission, which for me is a dream come true.” Cleaver emphasized the importance of this mission for younger generations, noting that “there are a couple of generations who haven’t lived through a moon landing; it’s almost becoming ancient history in a way.”
This mission captures the imagination of the public and generates excitement for returning to the Moon. It’s an important stepping stone paving the way for future crewed missions to Mars. Cleaver added, “To experience that with a whole new load of people on this Earth I think is going to be really special. It’s just the first step on our journey to Mars.”
With less than a week until launch, both Cleaver and Morris are eager to witness the culmination of their hard work. This incredible mission is a deep space trailblazer, opening up incredibly exciting exploration avenues! Humanity is poised to go back to the Moon and into the deeper reaches of the solar system.