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posted by martyb on Saturday March 28 2020, @02:01PM   Printer-friendly
from the what-about-boeing dept.

SpaceX has won a big NASA contract to fly cargo to the Moon

"This is another critical piece of our plan to return to the Moon sustainably."

[...] Last summer, NASA put out a call for companies who would be willing to deliver cargo to a proposed station in orbit around the Moon, called the Lunar Gateway. On Friday, NASA announced that the first award under this "Gateway Logistics" contract would go to SpaceX.

The company has proposed using its Falcon Heavy rocket to deliver a modified version of its Dragon spacecraft, called Dragon XL, to the Lunar Gateway. After delivering cargo, experiments and other supplies, the spacecraft would be required to remain docked at the Gateway for a year before "autonomous" disposal.

"This contract award is another critical piece of our plan to return to the Moon sustainably," NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a news release. "The Gateway is the cornerstone of the long-term Artemis architecture, and this deep space commercial cargo capability integrates yet another American industry partner into our plans for human exploration at the Moon in preparation for a future mission to Mars."

SpaceX's most powerful rocket will send NASA cargo to the moon's orbit to supply astronauts:

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration on Friday picked SpaceX as the first supplier to bring cargo to the agency's Gateway station in orbit around the moon, a big contract win for Elon Musk's space company.

SpaceX said it will use a new variation of its cargo spacecraft, called Dragon XL, to carry "more than 5 metric tons of cargo to Gateway in lunar orbit." The company will lift the spacecraft using its Falcon Heavy rocket, the most powerful rocket in the world.

I thought SLS was going to return us to the moon.


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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 28 2020, @03:35PM (4 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday March 28 2020, @03:35PM (#976654) Journal
    Would all those engineers think it was a good idea, if the money wasn't there? Don't underestimate the power of conflict of interest to make people stupid.

    Here, there's several warning signs for Lunar Gateway: 1) has a strong dependency on SLS, 2) doesn't serve a useful role - nobody has a real plan for it, 3) nor is in a good trajectory for sending or receiving things from outside of the Moon - L4 or L5 Earth-Moon is better (particularly for low delta-v trajectories [wikipedia.org] throughout the Solar System) and the latter has a delta-v [wikipedia.org] requirement that's moderately worse (2.3 km/s versus roughly 1.6 km/s) for putting things on the Moon, has no firm schedule on when it would launch (in large part due to that SLS dependency), and 4) takes more propellant to maintain that orbit than a similar station would need for the Lagrange points, meaning more need for costly service missions.

    My view is that this scheme will be scuttled when the SLS program collapses. Let's keep in mind that when the SLS program was started, they were planning to first launch in 2018, now, two years later, first launch is still yet to be scheduled (they're claiming [theverge.com] 2021, we'll see). They have spent over $14 billion [wikipedia.org] on this thing (probably well over $16 billion by now since that doesn't include 2019 or 2020 spending). That would have bought plenty of Falcon Heavy launches for putting up several Lunar Gateways.
  • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday March 28 2020, @03:53PM

    by fustakrakich (6150) on Saturday March 28 2020, @03:53PM (#976662) Journal

    Like the shuttle, it's all designed for 'cost-saving' pork. A lunar orbit does not make sense. It will take a lot less fuel to simply 'coast' from earth to moon back and forth. Pick up and drop off would be very little like the old days [wikimedia.org]

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  • (Score: 2) by legont on Saturday March 28 2020, @05:17PM (2 children)

    by legont (4179) on Saturday March 28 2020, @05:17PM (#976677)

    I think it's main purpose is to show progress while real missions are not quite possible yet.

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    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 28 2020, @07:17PM (1 child)

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday March 28 2020, @07:17PM (#976722) Journal
      I think its main purpose is circular, to justify the SLS spending. "We need the SLS because we created a project that needs the SLS." They could scale back the performance requirements (and do some combination of basic in orbit assembly and fueling) so that existing launch vehicles could launch the Gateway at a fraction of the SLS cost - same core functionality and vastly cheaper. But they won't.
      • (Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday March 28 2020, @07:33PM

        by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Saturday March 28 2020, @07:33PM (#976728) Journal

        It's likely that expendable Falcon Heavy with Dragon XL can launch any component of the Gateway. Dragon XL, which I assume has a larger volume than the standard payload fairing or Cargo Dragon, is being created primarily for this purpose. So SLS is no longer needed, which is important if you want to get anything done by 2024.

        https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2020/03/dragon-xl-nasa-spacex-lunar-gateway-supply-contract/ [nasaspaceflight.com]

        The birth of the Gateway will see start with the construction of two of the station’s mission-essential modules – the Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) and the Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO) – have been contracted to Maxar Technologies and Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems, respectively.

        Both modules are expected to launch on commercially-procured launch vehicles, ironically with SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy understood to be leading the way in during these evaluations.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Gateway [wikipedia.org]

        Various components of the Gateway were originally planned to be assembled using the SLS as co-manifested flights with the Orion spacecraft, but will now be launched on commercial launch vehicles.

        SLS's justification is now... we spent all that money on it. And they will send astronauts on it. Unless that also changes.

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