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NASA Awards Contract to Launch Initial Elements for Lunar Outpost
NASA has selected Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) of Hawthorne, California, to provide launch services for the agency's Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) and Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO), the foundational elements of the Gateway. As the first long-term orbiting outpost around the Moon, the Gateway is critical to supporting sustainable astronauts missions under the agency's Artemis program.
After integration on Earth, the PPE and HALO are targeted to launch together no earlier than May 2024 on a Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The total cost to NASA is approximately $331.8 million, including the launch service and other mission-related costs.
The PPE is a 60-kilowatt class solar electric propulsion spacecraft that also will provide power, high-speed communications, attitude control, and the capability to move the Gateway to different lunar orbits, providing more access to the Moon's surface than ever before.
The HALO is the pressurized living quarters where astronauts who visit the Gateway, often on their way to the Moon, will work. It will provide command and control and serve as the docking hub for the outpost. HALO will support science investigations, distribute power, provide communications for visiting vehicles and lunar surface expeditions, and supplement the life support systems aboard Orion, NASA's spacecraft that will deliver Artemis astronauts to the Gateway.
The Falcon Heavy will use an extended payload fairing.
Also at Spaceflight Now, TechCrunch, Teslarati, and Wccftech.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mhajicek on Thursday February 11 2021, @02:45AM (7 children)
Chipping away at the reasons for SLS to exist.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday February 11 2021, @03:02AM
Europa Clipper is liberated [soylentnews.org], Lunar Gateway modules are flying separately. The only thing left would be to send the astronauts there on a different vehicle.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by crafoo on Thursday February 11 2021, @03:08AM (3 children)
SLS never needed to exist. It was always pork for fat, stupid, and lazy corps and the politicians they have bought off.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Immerman on Thursday February 11 2021, @02:52PM (2 children)
I disagree - we needed *something*, and the SLS was supposed to be a quick and dirty solution. When the SLS program was started in 2011 we had just retired the Space Shuttle - which had been an expensive albatross around NASA's neck for decades, albeit one that could at least get them to low orbit.
At the time SpaceX was a scrappy young rocket company on the verge of bankruptcy that had only managed to reach orbit four times - their last two out of 5 Falcon 1 launches, and two Falcon 9 test launches. And it had only 1/3rd the payload capacity to LEO as the shuttle, and neither the track record or the political connections to be taken seriously.
Meanwhile the Falcon Heavy was still little more than a long-term idea, and wouldn't fly for another seven years, long after the SLS should have flown.
Which meant we had to rely on the Russians to get humans or heavy loads to orbit, and our only realistic options for getting heavy payloads to orbit would be to try to resurrect the ancient Saturn V program (which might actually have been a good call), or develop something new.
I think the big problem with the SLS was the cost-plus contract with no penalties for missed milestones. Had it flown on-time and on-budget... it would have delivered 3.5x (eventually almost 5x) the Space-shuttle capacity in a more versatile form factor (e.g. launching fairing-clad payloads, rather than just what could be squeezed into the shuttle's cargo bay)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Thursday February 11 2021, @07:00PM
Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!
We have a winner!
Cost Plus means no consequences. It actually gives incentive to being both late and over budget. Always.
The thing about landline phones is that they never get lost. No air tag necessary.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 12 2021, @04:10AM
That is essentially what SLS is: A Saturn V built from Shuttle parts. And that is actually the biggest problem with it. Shelby and friends required the SLS to be built that way so that their campaign contributors would be guaranteed to get the contracts to build it. This is the exact same reason the F-35 is the mess it is. Same bloated manufacturers. Same corrupt politicians.
(Score: 2) by Frosty Piss on Thursday February 11 2021, @04:10AM
And the ULA / Boeing.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday February 11 2021, @07:03PM
The Senator from Alabama has announced his retirement.
The thing about landline phones is that they never get lost. No air tag necessary.