L3HARRIS' AVIONICS MOON SHOT STORY BY DAVID HUGHES ircraft Electronics Association repair shop owners know L3Harris Technologies for its general aviation avionics and its longtime membership in the association, but few probably know the company also makes space-qualified avionics about to put American astronauts back on the moon. This is a tale of two avionics businesses under one expansive roof that meet widely different requirements to satisfy the needs of demanding customers who have never met and probably never will meet. A American astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt last stepped on the moon in 1972, but now the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Artemis program may allow astronauts to take that one small step onto the moon's surface again as early as 2025. According to NASA, the first astronauts to descend to the moon's surface in 2025 will be the first person of color and the first woman to land there. NASA's space launch system rockets powering Artemis 1 produce 8.8 million pounds of thrust versus the Saturn V of Apollo days with 7.5 million pounds. These are big rockets. Space X's super heavy-lift Starship will be used on later Artemis missions to the moon. The reusable system will have twice the thrust of Saturn V. About 75% of the thrust of Artemis 1 launched on Nov. 16, 2022, came from the solid rocket boosters. The two SRBs fired when pyro-initiators made by L3Harris lit them up. L3Harris controllers also command an actuator to point the nozzles of the SRBs and through redundancy provides a voting in the actuator resulting in perfect operation even if one controller malfunctions. Continued on following page avionics news * september 2023 49