SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Immerman on Saturday March 28 2020, @06:47PM (1 child)
Problem is that was a transpotation trajectory, no such stable orbit exists. Which means the space station would have to constantly do serious station-keeping maneuvers to maintain it's orbit.
I'm not even sure it's possible to find a trajectory that will travel to the moon a second time without substantial added propulsion - you'd need some pretty substantial precession to pull it off. In Apollo's 6-day round trip to the moon and back, the moon will have moved roughly 80 degrees around the Earth, while the apogee of the station's orbit would still be somewhere near where the moon was the first time.
You might be able to work out some sort of highly eccentric Earth orbit that would swing around the moon every 5th orbit or something - but it would almost certainly not be stable - there's vanishingly few orbits involving the moon that are stable - even orbitting the moon directly fr any length of time is a real challenge - you only have a relative handful orbits that won't rapidly destabilize due to the Earth's influence.
The other issue is that a big part of the declared purpose of the Lunar Gateway Station, is to develop the technologies necessary to routinely service a space station at such a large distance, which in some ways is a substantially bigger challenge than reaching the ISS a few hundred miles from the surface. Basically - most of the technologies necessary to eventually service a lunar base, lacking only the lunar lander. As well as providing a place to berth a reusable lunar lander so that it wouldn't have to be carried up from Earth/low orbit every time.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday March 28 2020, @07:21PM
Yeah, if I picture it right, the station would have to pass a little too close to the planet's core to perform that slingshot at escape velocity.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..