NASA’s ‘Moonikin’ Will Boldly Go Where No Test Dummy Has Gone Before - Gizmodo

But this ain’t your ordinary storefront mannequin, for this dummy will be fitted with two radiation sensors to record data during the Artemis I flight and will wear NASA’s next-generation flight suit, also known as the Orion suit.

The exterior of Orion will also experience temperatures reaching 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 degrees Celsius), which will be hotter than what the spacecraft endured during its 2014 test flight.

What’s more, data collected during Artemis I “will be used for Orion crew simulations and to verify crew safety by comparing flight vibration and acceleration against pre-flight predictions, then making model refinements as necessary,” Mark Baldwin, Orion’s occupant protection specialist for Lockheed Martin, explained in a statement.

Success in the mission will set the stage for Artemis II, in which the exact mission will repeat, save for the presence of an actual crew.

Dummies are used in tests that drop a test version of Orion from an aircraft, with the final set of tests scheduled for later this year, to verify the Artemis II seat and suit can limit the risk of head and neck injury during the most severe acceleration environments – abort and landing.

During water impact drop tests at Langley, dummies also occupied crew capsule prototypes to help engineers better understand what Orion and its crew may experience when landing in the ocean after missions to the Moon.