Honeywell Helps Bring Humans Back to the Moon

Fresh off of celebrating the 50^th anniversary of the first lunar landing, NASA is taking a giant leap toward sending humans back to the moon in this decade. Honeywell technology helped put men on the moon the first time. Now we’re stepping up once again by providing key components to Lockheed Martin for the new Orion spacecraft.

Innovations developed by talented Honeywell Aerospace scientists and engineers will perform vital functions on Orion during several missions that are part of the Artemis lunar exploration program. NASA plans an unmanned Artemis I test flight this year, gearing up for the Artemis II crewed flight in 2022, and all leading up to a first trip to the Moon by 2024.

We’ll provide 14 different product types for the Artemis program, which coincidentally is the same number of devices that made up the Honeywell Stabilization and Control System for Apollo 11. But that’s where the similarity ends.

As you would expect, Honeywell technologies have come a long way over the last half-century and today’s space systems are light years ahead of those we developed in the 1960s, which were groundbreaking at the time. Our leading-edge solutions for space applications are smaller, smarter, more rugged and more reliable. They use advanced software to embed capabilities that were unimaginable even a decade ago. They make crewmembers’ lives easier and missions safer and more successful.

It’s been a while since humans have walked on the moon. But by being a major part of programs like the International Space Station and Space Shuttle, we’ve kept our hand in the game when it comes to human space flight. In fact, our avionics, thermal control systems, mechanisms, environmental controls and life support systems have logged close to 200,000 flight hours in space. We’ve been a part of every NASA crewed space program and have achieved 100 percent mission success over the past six decades.

We’re proud of our past accomplishments and excited about what the future holds, as humans prepare a return visit to our nearest planetary neighbor. With Artemis, NASA continues the scientific exploration of the Moon started in 1969 and takes an important step toward an eventual flight to Mars.