NASA Names Companies to Develop Human Landers for Artemis Moon Missions
NASA has selected three U.S. companies to design and develop human landing systems (HLS) for the agency's Artemis program, one of which will land the first woman and next man on the surface of the Moon by 2024. NASA is on track for sustainable human exploration of the Moon for the first time in history.
The human landing system awards under the Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships (NextSTEP-2) Appendix H Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) are firm-fixed price, milestone-based contracts. The total combined value for all awarded contracts is $967 million for the 10-month base period.
The following companies were selected to design and build human landing systems:
- Blue Origin of Kent, Washington, is developing the Integrated Lander Vehicle (ILV) – a three-stage lander to be launched on its own New Glenn Rocket System and ULA Vulcan launch system.
- Dynetics (a Leidos company) of Huntsville, Alabama, is developing the Dynetics Human Landing System (DHLS) – a single structure providing the ascent and descent capabilities that will launch on the ULA Vulcan launch system.
- SpaceX of Hawthorne, California, is developing the Starship – a fully integrated lander that will use the SpaceX Super Heavy rocket.
"With these contract awards, America is moving forward with the final step needed to land astronauts on the Moon by 2024, including the incredible moment when we will see the first woman set foot on the lunar surface," said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. "This is the first time since the Apollo era that NASA has direct funding for a human landing system, and now we have companies on contract to do the work for the Artemis program."
Announcement video (2m14s).
Also at NASASpaceFlight, Space News, BBC, NYT, Ars Technica, cnet, and The Guardian.
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NASA Will Soon Choose One of These 3 Landers to Go Back to the Moon:
America's going back to the moon. It's been over 50 years since the Apollo missions, when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first people to walk on the moon in 1969. Both NASA and the current administration have decided it's high time people walked on the moon again—this time, importantly, those people won't just be men.
[...] In April 2020, the agency awarded a total of $967 million in contracts to three different private companies, giving them less than a year to come up with a lander design. Now the time has almost come to pick one of those three. Here are the contenders.
Blue Origin [...] The vertical crew cabin would require astronauts to descend to the moon's surface on a long ladder, which could be seen as an advantage because the crew is safer being high up.
Dynetics [...] Dynetics' is a single module with thrusters and propellant tanks on either side. It's specifically designed to be reusable for repeated exploration of the moon, and it's the only one of the three contenders with a horizontal crew cabin. [...]
SpaceX [...] the biggest and flashiest lunar lander. It's so tall, in fact, that astronauts would use an elevator to get from the crew cabin down to the moon's surface.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Ken_g6 on Friday May 01 2020, @04:40PM (5 children)
Let me get this straight. NASA wants to have SpaceX launch Starship to the Lunar Gateway, without crew. Then they want to spend much more money launching an Orion capsule on SLS to get the crew to the bigger and better Starship?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Immerman on Friday May 01 2020, @05:14PM (2 children)
Well, the lunar gateway is no longer planned as a precondition for a lunar landing - it's still on the roadmap, but as a support outpost for long-term development that probably won't be ready by 2024 rather than as an essential way station to the moon. I understand Trump is pushing hard to get boots back on the moon on his watch, and schedules are being adjusted accordingly. If he loses this November, schedules may well be adjusted again.
That's one of the things a lot of people don't understand about SLS - The program was designed to be as politics-proof as possible, in the face of previous heavy-lift projects that had been canceled partway through. And at a time when SpaceX didn't yet exist as a credible launch company. Things have changed since then, but SLS was designed to be as untouchable as possible until it's actually in service, in order to make sure there was *some* option for infrastructure-scale launches, and that untouchability means it's politically much easier to put to use in the preliminary moon missions than otherwise.
As for transferring crew to Starship in orbit? It still might make sense. NASA is all about reducing risks, and launch is generally the most dangerous part of the process - which means lots more testing and certification before being cleared for passengers. For a lunar lander... testing is much more expensive, and there's no guarantees that the traditional Boeing "overengineered, under-tested" rocket approach will have a lander ready in time. SLS is basically finished and awaiting certification, Orion has been finished waiting for it for years, but I don't believe any landers currently exist, unless Blue Origin was recently showing off an actual lander rather than a mock-up (I'm honestly not sure)
So basically, Starship could easily be sitting pretty, having already demonstrated uncrewed moon landings, but not yet having been certified for (NASA) crewed launches. If they get certified for crewed launches as well then the SLS might well get cut out of the picture - or it might not. Getting a few SLS "untouchable" missions out of the way might be the most practical option for NASA.
Alternately, NASA could very well be in the position that it can't very well fund Starship launch development while still directing SLS development, but *does* have funding for developing a lunar lander (or a few options). And since Starship is being developed to serve that that role *too*, it gives them a way to get some funding into Starship through the back door.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 01 2020, @10:59PM (1 child)
> For a lunar lander... testing is much more expensive, ...
Doesn't have to be more expensive. Where's Larry Bell when you need him? (answer: long dead, along with most of the Greatest Generation)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2ejvFX7Q20 [youtube.com] This video gets more exciting as they work through the test program--from the era when smoke was good!
The central jet engine carries most of the weight, making up the difference between earth and moon gravity. The trainer is controlled by rocket hardware similar to the LEM. Flight training in the LLRV is why Neil Armstrong was able to manually maneuver around a rock field on final approach to the lunar surface and land safely in a different spot.
More details here, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Landing_Research_Vehicle [wikipedia.org]
As I heard the story, from a Bell Engineer who was involved with the project, timing was tight on Apollo. Larry Bell knew that this was needed and built the first trainer on his own money, then sorted out the contract with NASA later.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday May 01 2020, @11:39PM
You can certainly do some testing with creative tricks to imperfectly simulate a lunar environment, but between gravity and air resistance the only way to see for sure how well something will be able to land on the moon, is to land it it on the moon.
That said, I suspect that landing on Earth is a far more challenging task, so if they can land in a field on Earth they'll be 90% of the way to doing so on the Moon.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 01 2020, @05:15PM
That may very well be intentionally for a higher degree of redundancy.
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Friday May 01 2020, @05:20PM
Two things:
0. A second Starship booster could be used to launch SLS as Starship's payload, in order for it to officially participate in the program.
1. NASA may very well recognize that SLS may never materialize, yet the political reality is that they MUST include SLS as a major player.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Friday May 01 2020, @07:26PM (2 children)
What is this Dynetics company? Am I the only one who can't help but think of Dianetics [wikipedia.org], i.e. Scientology?
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday May 01 2020, @07:31PM (1 child)
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Funny) by DannyB on Friday May 01 2020, @09:11PM
So, then aliens. Who don't want to be famous.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 01 2020, @08:43PM
The best odds of success are if you can pair the best in breed moon system with the best in breed launch system.
To be able to swap, the interface between the moon system and launch system needs to be common.
Starship appears a different beast, but it would be cool if Blue Origin and Dynetics could agree on an interface between the payload and booster that ULA, New Glen and maybe something from SpaceX could meet.