NASA's ambitious project to send a spacecraft into deep space has begun, and overseeing the first leg of Artemis is Coimbatore-born Subashini Iyer.?
She is basically the backbone of the project.?¡°It has been nearly 50 years since we last stepped on the moon ¡ We are getting ready to take humans back to the moon and beyond, to Mars,¡± Iyer told Times of India.?
Artemis l will be an uncrewed flight of the spacecraft Orion - the first of three complex missions for exploration on the Moon and Mars.?
Orion will travel a distance of 280,000 miles (over 4,50,000 km) from Earth, in a three-week mission.?
Its aim is to collect data while mission controllers will go over the performance of the spacecraft to set the stage for Artemis ll. A crewed spacecraft will orbit the moon.?
By the year 2024, Artemis lll will take astronauts to the moon.?
Iyer's job is engaged with the component of the Artemis l which will take Orion into space - the Space Launch System whose core stage arrived at the Kennedy Space Center in Late April. She has been working with SLS for two years now.?
¡°My role involves overseeing any support that Nasa needs once the core stage is built and handed over to Nasa,¡± Iyer said.?
Iyer was one of the first women to graduate in mechanical engineering in her college, VLB Janakiammal College, in 1992.?
Today, she leads a diverse team of mechanical and electrical engineers.