A Connecticut company made a piece of equipment that will be essential as the Artemis II mission returns to Earth from its record-setting trip around the moon.
Ensign-Bickford makes engineered explosives and is based in Simsbury. It made the explosive system that separates the spacecraft’s crew module from the service module, a critical step slated to happen just prior to the spaceship entering earth’s atmosphere Friday evening.
“Sometimes in rocket launches, an explosive event is actually the most efficient way to make something happen. And that's because once an explosive event happens, it's very quick,” said Allison Loudon, a project manager at Ensign-Bickford who works on explosive technology on Artemis II.
Her company also helped to make a device attached to the large orange core stage that got the Orion capsule to space. That device wasn’t used – it’s only there for emergencies – and would disable the rocket if it went off course.
While the liftoff went as expected, Loudon said she said she was still holding her breath.
“It's always a little nerve-wracking,” Loudon said. “And generally a lot of our products are explosive, we can't test them, they would be non-functional. So watching that launch for me was very personal.”
Personal, but also professionally satisfying.
“I have a sense of relief, actually, that the product is kinda just there for the ride, and I'm OK with that,” Loudon said. “We get joy from when we do our testing on a sample of the product to make sure everything's been made properly and it's performing perfectly.”
Dozens of Connecticut aerospace companies have worked on the Artemis program, including East Hartford-based Pratt & Whitney, Farmington-based Otis Elevator, Henkel Corp. in Rocky Hill and Collins Aerospace in Windsor Locks.
The Orion capsule is expected to re-enter the atmosphere shortly after 8 p.m. Friday, and splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California. You can watch the mission here.
