The backbone of ESA’s fourth European Service Module at Thales Alenia Space in Turin, Italy, in May 2022. In June of the same year, this structure was sent to prime contractor Airbus in Bremen, Germany, where engineers from across Europe began the intricate process of turning it into a fully functional spacecraft. Over many months of integration and testing, they installed and connected the module’s 11 km of wiring, 33 engines, and several tanks holding over 8000 litres of fuel as well as water and air for astronauts.
Now fully assembled, the module will soon leave the Airbus cleanroom and set sail across the Atlantic Ocean to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, where it will be connected to the crew module and its distinctive European-built ‘ X-wing’ solar arrays to form the complete Orion spacecraft for the Artemis IV mission.
Artemis IV will also bring ESA’s Lunar I-Hab habitation module to lunar orbit, where it will join NASA’s habitation and propulsion modules to form the international Gateway station, humankind’s next outpost around the Moon.
The European Service Module is a truly collaborative endeavour: the joint effort of engineers across more than 20 companies and 10 different European countries, working together to go forward to the Moon.