I’m Canadian Space Agency astronaut
Jenni Gibbons, and I’m here in a viewing
gallery above the white flight control
room at NASA Johnson Space Center.
Now I want to give you a little insight
today into what one of my roles
will be during the Artemis II mission,
and that is of a capcom.
Capcom is short for Capsule Communicator,
and they essentially act as the prime link
between the personnel and expertise
in Mission Control and the
spacecraft during the mission.
I’m a certified International Space Station
capcom, and Artemis II capcom,
and I will be working as a capcom
through various phases of the mission.
My role is to synthesize the
information of the flight control team
in Mission Control and send calls
to the crew that’s on that capsule.
So there will be multiple capcoms,
and they’ll be working for three shifts a
day in order to give the crew aboard
the Orion spacecraft what they need in
order to stay safe and execute the mission.
So you have to have very
good systems knowledge,
and you have to be tough,
you have to be competent.
And you have to really nail concise
communication so the crew knows exactly
what to do and limit the back-and-forth
or inefficiencies in those calls.
Training to be a lunar capcom has been excellent.
It’s prepared me to be a better crewmember
and a better support person for Artemis II,
and I can’t wait to see Jeremy and my other
colleagues fly around the Moon on Artemis II.
I’ll be here supporting them, talking to them,
and hopefully sharing it with all of you.