Artemis II Moon Watch - Mrugen Patel

"To be here and experience this mission unfold in real time and be part of this team — I'm just living my dream right now.” In Mission Control’s Orion Mission Evaluation Room inside NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Mrugen Patel supported Orion’s passive thermal control system, watching real‑time spacecraft data to ensure the crew and hardware remained within safe temperatures throughout the Artemis II mission. Credit: NASA Producers: Rad Sinyak, Erika Peters Editor: Nicole Rose Join NASA as we go forward to the Moon and on to Mars -- discover the latest on Earth, the Solar System and beyond with a weekly update in your inbox. Subscribe at: https://www.nasa.gov/subscribe

What is said in the film

So we have now entered the return trajectory. So we are really excited to see the crew return home safely along with the spacecraft, through the reentry and the splashdown phase. I'm Mrugen Patel. I'm the System Manager for the Passive Thermal Control System of the Orion spacecraft. And I support the PTCS console in the Orion MER.

So the PTCS system that's the thermal control system, is comprised of for like MLI, which is a multi-layer insulation, which are, the blankets that go around different hardware to help keep them warm. And we also have temperature sensors across the different systems to understand how the thermal performance is changing as we fly the mission. Every time we do a change in the orientation of how Orion flies, we have some pieces of hardware identified as they might get hotter than expected. All the telemetry that we saw, it remained within the bounds of our analysis. And it also remained within its limits, which is really nice.

What's particularly exciting for the thermal console is, we are now in a phase where we have the opportunity to do an on-orbit test to characterize the thermal performance of the spacecraft under stable conditions. The data that we will get will help us improve our thermal analytical math models for planning and executing future missions while maintaining crew safety as well as spacecraft safety. To be here and to experience this mission unfold in real time and to be part of this team, I'm just living my dream right now.

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