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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: 2) by takyon on Thursday February 11 2021, @04:17AM (6 children)
Bezos has his company's "do a little bit, slowly" ethos to blame. New Glenn could be superior to Falcon Heavy, but by the time it flies regularly it will be competing with Starship.
I think the plan years ago was to send modules and astronauts simultaneously using SLS (ULA/Boeing), but it has long since become apparent that SpaceX would be launching the modules. So no conniptions.
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(Score: 2) by jasassin on Thursday February 11 2021, @04:47AM (3 children)
Seriously, why would Bezos give a shit about a Lunar Gateway? Is there going to be a moon colony with everyone signed up with Amazon Prime and the customer complaints, about their packages being late, are going to overwhelm his outsourced customer service department?
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0x663EB663D1E7F223
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Thursday February 11 2021, @05:53AM (2 children)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Moon_(spacecraft) [wikipedia.org]
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(Score: 2) by jasassin on Thursday February 11 2021, @06:39AM (1 child)
Ok. I give up. You win. The world wins.
I'm stupid. You're smart.
Pizza delivery to the moon in 30 minutes or less.
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0x663EB663D1E7F223
(Score: 3, Informative) by Socrastotle on Thursday February 11 2021, @09:44AM
If you like Sci-fi I'd recommend Artemis. It kind of sucks because Andy Weir, author and the author of The Martian as well, was clearly going for a Hugo and thus obligated to bump the pandering up to 11, but outside of that it paints an amusing and believable picture of a colonization of the moon, including the nuances of delivery.
(Score: 2) by Socrastotle on Thursday February 11 2021, @09:48AM (1 child)
Any recommend reference on the happenings of Blue Origin? I haven't been following their happenings so much and just assumed their lack of progress was due to truth behind the old joke:
- What do you call a billionaire who starts an aerospace company?
- A millionaire.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday February 11 2021, @03:18PM
I would also be interested, but they don't seem to share much, maybe even less than Boeing, etc.
Seems to me their big thing is selling rocket engines. Their rockets themselves seem to be doomed to also-ran status for the foreseeable future, though as things mature they'll probably be well positioned to become SpaceX's first major competitor. They won't be able to compete on raw payload capacity, but I suspect it'll be a long time before Starship routinely flies with anything remotely close to their max payload anyway.