Dear Readers,

As the ARTEMIS Program gears up to a real presence on the Moon, space weather must be considered as a risk to functional performance of technologies underlying space assets intended for lunar operations. On November 13, 2022, CAPSTONE (Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment) spacecraft completed an initial NRHO (near-rectolinear halo orbit wherein Earth’s-Moon’s gravity is balanced) insertion. NRHOi intended for Gateway docking. On December 12, 2022, NASA’s ARTEMIS I completed a 25½-day uncrewed test flight around the moon, validating the performance of Space Launch System (SLS) and the Orion spacecraft, the crew module for deep space journeys. The conversation on lunar operations is being heard. ARTEMIS I mission did not carry crew, but two identical manikin torsos wore an Astro-Rad vest equipped with radiation detectors, mapping internal radiation doses to areas of the body. Space weather exposes the hardware-driven mission to vulnerable risks of radiation-induced failures. And, it exposes astronauts to health risks, acute as well as progressively clinical. The Apollo Program and the International Space Station Project were primarily human, astronautic-directed. Operations in lunar surface activities and ISS-extravehicular activities directly interfaced astronauts with space weather. Space operations have long leveraged technology with costs and scheduling, but managed risks with safety regimes of probabilistic reliability of operable space assets, sensor-enabled control loops, and barrier-shielding. Twenty years ago, “Bioastronautics Roadmap: A Risk Reduction Strategy for Human Space Exploration” prioritized different technologies underlying space assets according to their risk to astronaut health and provided investigative questions regarding the risks. Moreover, NASA identified dust as a risk factor for EVA performance and crew health that compromises EVA systems, in addition to deeming space radiation a high priority in protecting astronaut health. The moral issue indicates the apportionment between human EVAs and robotic EVAs. I will present a lightning talk/ poster evaluating NASA’s taxonomy of space technologies and NASA’s bioastronautics at the Lunar Surface Infrastructure Consortium Meeting (April 24-25) to ascertain the mitigating ethics of EVA substitution by technology “push”. The extended abstract for the LSIC talk as well as the abstract for Lunar Dust Mitigation and ARTEMIS Mission Operations are included in this quarterly issue.

Sincerely,
Ronald H. Freeman, PhD
Editor-in-Chief
April 1, 2023

Journal of Space Operations & Communicator, a quarterly online publication, serves as a forum for those involved in the space operations field to communicate with one another, share ideas and information that improve the way operations are carried out in space. The Journal is a crossdisciplinary scholarly publication designed to advance space communication as a profession and as an academic discipline. The Journal is distributed electronically without charge to users on a global basis. JSOC contains peer-reviewed articles, comments and case notes written by leading scientists, professors, and practitioners in their respective fields of aerospace expertise. The editorial board seeks articles that demonstrate exemplary academic research of emerging trends in space technology and space operations fields.