Two manikins and a ‘moonikin’
A famed Apollo 13 engineer’s name is returning his lunar mission’s spirit of can-do to the moon. NASA opened a naming contest for a “moonikin” (a manikin bound for the moon, laden with two radiation sensors). The winning entry was Arturo Campos, after an engineer key to solving the problem of bringing three people home safely from the moon after a series of critical problems beset Apollo 13 in deep space.
Joining Campos are Helga and Zohar, two manikin torsos from the German space agency (known by its German acronym DLR). Each of the DLR pair is fitted with 5,600 sensors to measure radiation, and Zohar will wear an AstroRad radiation protection vest.
The three simulated astronauts will show how much risk to astronauts comes from moving outside the Van Allen radiation belts that shield Earth’s lower orbits from radiation. Astronauts are more vulnerable to cosmic rays from deep space when they reach into high Earth orbit and beyond, but the risk is still being quantified.
