Indian-origin Suhasini Iyer has now become a living inspiration for Indian women aiming to venture into space missions.
As NASA’s ambitious project to send a spacecraft into deep space has begun, Suhasini is overseeing the first leg of Artemis. To be precise, she plays the most pivotal role in 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,” she told Times of India.
Artemis I, formerly Exploration Mission-1, will be the first integrated test of NASA’s deep space exploration systems: the Orion spacecraft, Space Launch System rocket, and the ground systems at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The first in a series of increasingly complex missions, Artemis I will be an uncrewed flight test that will provide a foundation for human deep space exploration, and demonstrate our commitment and capability to extend human existence in the Moon and beyond.
The Orion will travel a distance of 280,000 miles (over 4, 50,000 km) from Earth, in a three-week mission. It will collect data while mission controllers will go over the performance of the spacecraft to set the stage for Artemis ll. By the year 2024, the aim is that Artemis lll will take astronauts to the moon.
Suhasini is working on the Space Launch System for two years now. It is the component of the Artemis l that will take Orion into space whose core stage arrived at the Kennedy Space Center in Late April.
“My role involves overseeing any support that Nasa needs once the core stage is built and handed over to Nasa,” Suhasini said.
Suhasini Iyer was born in Coimbatore, Kerala, and was one of the first women to graduate in mechanical engineering in her college, VLB Janakiammal College, in the year 1992. She has come a long way and now leads a diverse team of mechanical and electrical engineers.