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NASA crewed lunar lander awards
NASA awards lunar lander contracts to Blue Origin, Dynetics?and Starship
"Between the three contractors, I think NASA has everything it needs to be successful." ERIC BERGER - 4/30/2020, 1:00 PM https://arstechnica.com/science/2020...-lunar-lander- contracts-to-blue-origin-dynetics-and-starship/ From the article: Three contracts The awards, which cover a period of 10 months, were given to the following teams: $579 million to the Blue Origin-led "National Team." Blue Origin will serve as the prime contractor, building the Blue Moon lunar lander as the "descent element" of the system, along with program management, systems engineering, and safety and mission assurance. Lockheed Martin will develop a reusable "ascent element" and lead crewed flight operations. Northrop Grumman will build the "transfer element," and Draper will lead descent guidance and provide flight avionics. It will launch on a New Glenn rocket. $253 million to a Dynetics-led team. The company's proposal for a lunar lander is non-traditional and includes Sierra Nevada Corporation as a major partner. The ALPACA lander has a pair of drop tanks that are launched separately, which allow the main lander to be reused. These tanks are depleted and then jettisoned during descent. ALPACA could be launched on United Launch Alliance's Vulcan rocket. $135 million to SpaceX. The company bid its Super Heavy rocket and Starship to carry humans to the Moon. The benefit of Starship is that if the vehicle is successful, it would offer NASA a low-cost, reusable solution for its needs. .... Also from the article: At the end of the initial 10-month contract, NASA may or may not down-select from three to two lander designs. And this: NASA's award for Starship will likely surprise many in the aerospace community who have viewed the ambitious project with some skepticism (SpaceX's founder eventually plans to build hundreds of Starships to settle Mars). But Bridenstine said NASA could not afford to ignore the potential of this system. "SpaceX is really good at flying and testing?and failing and fixing," he said. "People are going to look at this and say, 'My goodness, we just saw Starship blow up again. Why are you giving them a contract?' The answer is because SpaceX is really good at iteratively testing and fixing. This is not new to them. They have a design here that, if successful, is going to be transformational. It?s going to drive down costs and it?s going to increase access, and it?s going to enable commercial activities that historically we?ve only dreamed about. I fully believe that Elon Musk is going to be successful. He is focused like a laser on these activities." So, NASA, at least, understands SpaceX's approach to iterative design and is o.k. with it. Otherwise, Boeing would have gotten an award, not SpaceX. Jeff -- All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone. These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends, employer, or any organization that I am a member of. |
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NASA crewed lunar lander awards
On 2020-04-30 21:56, Jeff Findley wrote:
NASA awards lunar lander contracts to Blue Origin, Dynetics?and Starship "Between the three contractors, I think NASA has everything it needs to be successful." ERIC BERGER - 4/30/2020, 1:00 PM https://arstechnica.com/science/2020...-lunar-lander- contracts-to-blue-origin-dynetics-and-starship/ From the article: ... $135 million to SpaceX. The company bid its Super Heavy rocket and Starship to carry humans to the Moon. The benefit of Starship is that if the vehicle is successful, it would offer NASA a low-cost, reusable solution for its needs. .... SpaceFlightNow (https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/04/3...-lunar-lander/) quotes Doug Loverro from NASA: "For these initial contracts … given what the contractors proposed, both Blue Origin and Dynetics proposed solutions that could use Gateway or could go directly to Orion,” Loverro said. “SpaceX proposed a solution for this base period that they’re working on that would just go to Orion.” This is pretty farcical -- the reusable giant Starship will be used just to ferry a small crew between Orion and the lunar surface. And Orion will of course be launched by the non-reusable SLS, probably costing multiples of the Starship cost. We can at least hope that the Starship will also carry significant amounts of cargo from Earth to Moon and back. -- Niklas Holsti Tidorum Ltd niklas holsti tidorum fi . @ . |
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NASA crewed lunar lander awards
On 2020-04-30 22:36, Niklas Holsti wrote:
On 2020-04-30 21:56, Jeff Findley wrote: NASA awards lunar lander contracts to Blue Origin, Dynetics?and Starship "Between the three contractors, I think NASA has everything it needs to be successful." ERIC BERGER - 4/30/2020, 1:00 PM https://arstechnica.com/science/2020...-lunar-lander- contracts-to-blue-origin-dynetics-and-starship/ *From the article: ** ... *** $135 million to SpaceX. The company bid its Super Heavy rocket *** and Starship to carry humans to the Moon. The benefit of *** Starship is that if the vehicle is successful, it would offer *** NASA a low-cost, reusable solution for its needs. .... SpaceFlightNow (https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/04/3...-lunar-lander/) quotes Doug Loverro from NASA: "For these initial contracts … given what the contractors proposed, both Blue Origin and Dynetics proposed solutions that could use Gateway or could go directly to Orion,” Loverro said. “SpaceX proposed a solution for this base period that they’re working on that would just go to Orion.” This is pretty farcical -- the reusable giant Starship will be used just to ferry a small crew between Orion and the lunar surface. And Orion will of course be launched by the non-reusable SLS, probably costing multiples of the Starship cost. We can at least hope that the Starship will also carry significant amounts of cargo from Earth to Moon and back. More info from nasaspaceflight.com shows that this will be a special version of Starship without flaps or heatshield, and with special engines for landing and take-off mounted high up on the sides, apparently to avoid disturbing the lunar surface. So no return to the Earth, but (they say) multiple trips between lunar surface and lunar orbit. -- Niklas Holsti Tidorum Ltd niklas holsti tidorum fi . @ . |
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NASA crewed lunar lander awards
On Thursday, April 30, 2020 at 8:13:18 PM UTC-4, JF Mezei wrote:
NASA press release: https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/n...-moon-missions More info at: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-se...-human-landers So 967 million to 3 groupd pr $322m per company for 10 months. Nice pork. Blue Origin is really Northrop Gunman and Lokheed with Blye Origin as the face of it. I have to assume thjat Boeing is somewhere behind Dynetics. SpaceX will have to move from producing glorified beer kegs rhat can't hold pressure to actual rockets pretty soon. February 2021 is when NASA actually selects who gets to go to the moon and gets more money going forward. So this $967m is an RFP send to the 3 groups who needs to submit proper proposals by February 2021. My bet is that SpaceX will work to beat the 2 others, and then convince NASA that if they want to land by 2024, to drop requirememt to dock to Orion or that virtual useless Gateway thing and just let SpaceXuse Starship from earth to the moon and back. Where I am quite curious is how SpaceX will handle fuel for the return trip. The scenarios was Starship lands on mars and they create methane and LOX on site to refuel. That isn't gonna happen on the moon in a couple of years. Considering the weight restrictions of the LEM, I am curious how they plan to support the landing of a steel Titanic on the moon AND get it off the moon and back to earth. And Musk will have to take his pretty steel cones and find some means to put a docking adaptor on it somewhere so it can dock to either Orion or Gateway. (I assume the standard is sexual, and if som does this mean Starship will need to be female ir Orion will dock to it?). Or are these docking adpators androgenous so the same docking adpator could dock with Orion , or with Gateway ? It is more likely to be Dragon2 on a Superheavy and some other lander waitiung around the moon in my opinion. Or, Starship carries Orion as cargo and iopens doors to release it when near the moon. Are you a former employee of SpaceX with a grudge? Other than that, your open hostility towards them is difficult to reason. You should be careful making assumptions such as that with Blue origin. Unless you enjoy making silly statements and then being corrected which seems to be your pattern. |
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NASA crewed lunar lander awards
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NASA crewed lunar lander awards
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NASA crewed lunar lander awards
On May/2/2020 at 15:19, Jeff Findley wrote :
In article , says... BTW, the $967m pork will not be distributed evenly between the 3 candidates. The Blue Origin group gets huge chunk of it (about $500m IIRC) and the other two get what is left of the pie. Like most NASA contracts like this (multiple companies bidding to work towards a preliminary design review), it all depends on what is bid and how NASA evaluated the proposal. The SpaceX proposal is obviously seen as the highest risk (even though Blue Origin hasn't launched anything except for its suborbital New Shepherd vehicle). Yes. Just like when they made their proposal for launching astronauts to the space station, they received less money because their proposal was higher risk and less advanced than Boeing's. Or maybe it was because their proposal was more advanced and they needed less money to complete. That would explain why they will be launching before Boeing. I think it would make sense for SpaceX to hire someone with expertise in writing proposals for NASA. Of course, they should continue to focus mainly on getting the job done. They will probably end up making more money than Boeing in the astronaut ferrying business. Alain Fournier |
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NASA crewed lunar lander awards
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