Mission Evaluation Room for Artemis

Engineers at work during the ascent shift of the Artemis I mission at ESA's Mission Evaluation Room housed at the Erasmus Support Facility at ESA's technical heart ESTEC in The Netherlands.

The European Service Module is powering Orion around the Moon and back, providing propulsion, temperature control, electricity as well as storage and delivery for essential supplies such as fuel, water and air. This first Artemis mission is an uncrewed test mission, putting the spacecraft through its paces preparing to send astronauts forward to the Moon.

After liftoff at 07:47 CET (06:47 GMT, 01:47 local time) on 16 November, the European Service Module unfolded its 7-m solar wings to start generating electricity and continue the 25-day Artemis mission.

No spacecraft flies without mission control, and the Artemis Moon missions with Orion and the European Service Module have an extensive flight team on ground reflecting the spacecraft’s international character.

The main mission control is based at NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) next to the International Space Station control room. Here flight directors can send commands to Orion and talk to the astronauts in flight. For daily commands and routine flight operations these are where the main operations on Earth are performed.

Next to the mission control is the Mission Evaluation Room (MER) where experts with more in-depth knowledge are on hand to provide expertise on Orion systems during flight. Engineers from NASA and ESA monitor and recommend actions at all times during a mission.