Washington’s space economy powers the Artemis II moonshot

MUKILTEO – In 1967, as three astronauts performed a test ahead of the first crewed mission to space, a fire sparked inside the Apollo spacecraft. Unable to exit quickly, the three astronauts died.

The Apollo 1 tragedy shook the nation and led to changes in the industry to ensure something like that could not happen again.

Today, as NASA prepares to send four astronauts to circle the moon, marking the first time humans have left Earth’s orbit since the Apollo missions more than 50 years ago, a Washington space company manufactures one of those safety mechanisms.

Karman Space & Defense – a Huntington Beach, Calif.-based company with three Washington facilities and 500 workers in the state – displayed that mechanism at a recent tour of its Mukilteo facility, ahead of NASA’s Artemis II launch set to take off as soon as Wednesday afternoon.

During the 10-day mission, four astronauts will leave Earth orbit, circle the moon and then splash down in the Pacific Ocean. Artemis II is the second mission in a series of launches designed to land humans on the lunar surface and study how to one day use the moon as a pit stop on the way to Mars.

On Monday, Karman displayed two tools, called the Pin Puller and Pin Pusher.

The mechanism took about two years to design and is new to the Orion spacecraft, the Lockheed Martin-built crew module that houses the four astronauts heading to the moon.

The two devices together would force open the hatch of the Orion crew module in the event of an emergency. The Puller would retract a pin and disengage the hatch. Then two Pushers would drive two latch trains, a type of fastener, into the unlatched position, allowing the door to open.

The Puller and Pusher can be used at any time, said Jonathan Beaudoin, Karman’s chief operating officer, but “hopefully they don’t need to use it.”

Forty-one Washington companies have a hand in the Artemis program. U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and the ranking member of the Senate committee that oversees NASA, visited two of those local companies Monday, championing Washington’s role in the historic mission.

Cantwell has been promoting the Artemis missions and advocating for a permanent moon base to help the U.S. establish a lunar presence before its main competitor, China. Legislation backed by Cantwell would also extend the life of the International Space Station, currently set to deorbit in the next few years, and require NASA to immediately begin soliciting bids for two commercial space stations.

The Artemis II mission will not only mark the first time humans have left Earth orbit in more than 50 years, it will be the farthest a human has traveled away from Earth, Cantwell said Monday. But the ultimate goal is to continue learning and testing to enable the U.S. to set up its lunar base and eventually reach Mars.

“Our mission here is to get this technology correct, so that we can return and land and build a moon base. This mission will determine whether we can successfully take that next stage,” Cantwell said. “All of these workers (in Washington) have been perfecting this for years. … We’re really proud that the state is playing such a big role in solving these problems.”

Washington’s space cluster has more than 100 companies, according to a recent count from Cantwell’s office. The industry employees 13,000 workers and generates about $4.6 billion in economic activity in the state.

Karman, like many space companies involved in the Artemis program, is responsible for several different components of the system. Ahead of the first Artemis mission in 2022, which sent an uncrewed spacecraft to orbit the moon, Karman said it had manufactured and delivered thousands of critical components for the Orion spacecraft.

On Monday, it highlighted its Pin Puller and Pusher, as well as thrusters that kick into action as the spacecraft prepares to land back on Earth, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean. The thrusters will push off a protective covering over the Orion crew module, allowing a series of parachutes to unfurl and guide the vehicle to a safe landing.

In its Los Angeles factory, Karman also builds barrel panels for the core stage of the Space Launch System rocket used in the Artemis missions, Beaudoin said.

Boeing builds several crucial components for the rocket, known as SLS, including the avionics, core stage and upper stage.

Boeing does not work on its space projects in Washington, but the commercial airplane manufacturer has a long history in space. It built the Saturn V rocket that delivered the first astronauts to the lunar surface in 1969 and 1972. It later worked on NASA’s Space Shuttle program and served as the prime contractor for the International Space Station.

Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos’ Kent-based rocket company, is not involved in the Artemis II mission but does have contracts for later stages of the program.

L3Harris, a Florida-based company that acquired Redmond’s Aerojet Rocketdyne in 2023, is working on more than 100 components for the Artemis II mission, including the engines that power Boeing’s SLS rocket. NASA visited the former Aerojet Rocketdyne site last year to thank the workers manufacturing all the components needed to get the Artemis missions off the ground.

On Monday, Cantwell toured that Redmond campus, where employees fabricate components, assemble the pieces and then test the final product before shipping the engines off to customers.

L3Harris tests its engines three times before delivery. First, in the final assembly section of its factory, after the engine is put together. Then, in a chamber designed to simulate the environment in space. And lastly, after a thorough decontamination to make sure it still works as anticipated.

L3Harris is responsible for most of Orion’s propulsion system, including the large engines that produce an extremely high amount of thrust to launch the spacecraft out of Earth orbit and to the moon, as well as the smaller engines that guide the vehicle through space once there. In Redmond, the company also has the distinct job of building the engines that help the astronauts get back to Earth.

“If you want to get back, you need a Redmond thruster,” said John Schneider, L3Harris’s vice president of operations.

Schneider called Artemis I, the uncrewed first mission in the series in 2022, a “perfect mission.”

“We were able to launch, go around the moon and then return it back, basically hit a home run, pitched a perfect game,” he said Monday. Now, he’s ready to watch NASA do it again, this time with astronauts on board.