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Gateway Does Not Need Canadarm3 For #Moon2024

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
May 16, 2019
Filed under ,
Gateway Does Not Need Canadarm3 For #Moon2024

Accelerated NASA Moon Landing Plan Doesn’t Need Canadian Robotic System, SpaceQ
“So with NASA deferring elements of the Gateway not needed for the new plan, comes the question of whether Canada’s robotic system is needed to as part of the revised 2024 plan. In a follow-up email with Gerstenmaier, SpaceQ asked, with the updated moon plan and the revised architecture, is the expected Canadian contributed robotic arm (Canadarm 3) one of the capabilities needed to support a lunar landing in 2024? Gerstenmaier replied that “at this point in our planning the robotic arm is not required for the 2024 landing.” He also said “we would like the arm as soon as available. The CSA arm concept is very creative and be used inside as well.”
U.S. Moon Plans Are Causing Concern for the International Partners Including Canada, SpaceQ
“In a follow-up email with Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA’s Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations, Gerstenmaier wanted to provide a further comment on the matter. He said “the arm is not absolutely required for the lunar landing. We are making accommodations for the arm in early Gateway and will be ready to use the arm as soon as it is available.”
NASA Secures First International Partnership for Moon to Mars Lunar Gateway, NASA (28 February 2019)
“Today, Canada leads the world in space-based robotic capabilities, enabling critical repairs to the Hubble Space Telescope and construction of the International Space Station. Our new collaboration on Gateway will enable our broader international partnership to get to the Moon and eventually to Mars.”

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

32 responses to “Gateway Does Not Need Canadarm3 For #Moon2024”

  1. Daryl Schuck says:
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    The mindset that has pervaded all of the early gateway concepts is you are building another ISS, albeit smaller, complete with all features and function of the ISS. This appeals to the encampments at NASA who can leave their org charts intact as we transition to the gateway. A full EVA capability with airlock is also envisioned for the same reasons. This tendency to maintain the status quo in lunar orbit is not practical or necessary.

    • Tim Blaxland says:
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      Agree. I’m yet to see a coherent argument in favour of a gateway at all, especially why it is required to support the 2024 goal.

      • Zed_WEASEL says:
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        Simple. You need the SLS & Orion to appease certain Congressional critters to get funding for any Lunar mission. And if you use the SLS & Orion, you could only get to a NHRO orbit around the moon. Hence you need a transfer station in the NRHO orbit to staged Lunar landings from.

        The 2024 goal is more likely to be the late 2020s with the NASA plan of record if all goes well. IMO.

        • Jeff2Space says:
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          You don’t need “a transfer station”. You simply leave Orion parked in NRHO during the lunar surface mission. Then when the surface mission is done, you dock with Orion in NRHO.

          We didn’t do Apollo with a lunar orbital station. I don’t see why we truly need one today. Its creation was pure pork politics. Then it was expanded to give the international partners something to do without truly putting them on the critical path. But NASA will say they are on the critical path to appease them (politics again).

          When your program becomes more political than anything else, you can’t expect things to go smoothly, quickly, or cheaply, IMHO.

          • Zed_WEASEL says:
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            IIRC the current Orion stack got about roughly 21 mission days since that is the design life support systems.

            So unless you intend to leave the Orion capsule unmanned during a Lunar landing sortie. You need something with a longer crew support endurance in NRHO orbit.

            You don’t need to stop at NRHO with Orion. Since according to the original Constellation mission profile. Trans Lunar injection to LLO was to be perform by the Altair lander and all the service module have to do is fly back to Earth. The original Orion service module specifications wasn’t design to do the TLI to LLO and Earth return for the bloated Orion capsule alone.

          • fcrary says:
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            What’s wrong with leaving an Orion capsule empty during a lunar landing sortie? They didn’t do that during Apollo for two reasons. First, they weren’t confident in leaving the CSM by itself, with no one to fix something if it went wrong. Second, they had limited experience with orbit rendezvous, especially around the Moon, and none with automated docking. So they wanted a live pilot on both spacecraft. I don’t think either issue is a problem today. A spacecraft safely running on autopilot (or under ground control) for a few weeks isn’t a big deal, and we’ve been doing docking spacecraft for decades, often on autopilot.

          • Zed_WEASEL says:
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            I don’t think empty Orion capsule matters that much. Maybe NASA might disagree.

            However the 21 days endurance of the Orion capsule means that just using the Orion capsule as part of a Lunar landing will limit its scope to about the same as Apollo.

          • fcrary says:
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            I’m not sure what you mean by “about the same.” 21 days doesn’t sound like much more than 12 days, but that’s the total mission duration. If all the extra time goes into time on the surface, that becomes 12 versus 3 days, which strikes me a big difference.

            It also isn’t clear to me if the endurance of an Orion will be 21 days. That’s the design requirement for endurance with a full crew on board. I don’t know what it would be, if it were left unmanned and in a low power mode. I don’t know if anyone knows that. Unlike Dragon 2 and CST-100 Starliner, I don’t think Orion has a requirement for unoccupied storage time.

          • Zed_WEASEL says:
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            AIUI the current Orion stack can support a crew of 4 for total of 21 days with the consumables aboard.

          • MAGA_Ken says:
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            I know this sounds stupid but I wonder if Orion has the capability to dock with anything. Perhaps Orion needs the Canadarm to berth with the Gateway. Then the crew transfers from Orion to the lander.

            Remember when they were talking about using commercial back for EM-1 back in February somebody in NASA said launching the ICS and Orion elements separately was a no go because of the lack of docking capability for Orion.

          • fcrary says:
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            I remember that discussion. My understanding is that Orion will have docking capabilities. However, the specific Orion spacecraft they have built for the EM-1 (Now Artemis 1, I guess) test is not a full build with all the planned capabilities. Docking is one of the capabilities it lacks.

          • MAGA_Ken says:
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            Maybe, but I read that the flight computer from EM-1 is going to be reused on EM-2 (I think also on EM-3). Apparently the computer uses a PowerPC architecture and cost a gazillion dollars to make.

          • fcrary says:
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            I was thinking more in terms of the hardware than the software. Things like the docking collar, the approach radar, and, well, a hatch on the top as well as the side. The computer is something they’d want to fly on EM-1 and not change for EM-2, since that’s proving reliability in a space (radiation) environment. The software, well, I’d want to fly production code. But there may be features that aren’t going to be exercised on EM-1 and I have no idea if they’d be in the EM-1 version. For the cost, I also don’t know the number. But you can be sure it’s got lots and lots of digits to the left of the decimal place.

          • MAGA_Ken says:
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            Ok, I thought EM-1 would be a “completed” design hardware wise.

            Looking at that Predecisional plan, the Arm isn’t installed until after the first landing. So my thought is incorrect.

    • Zed_WEASEL says:
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      What you are saying is that you could do with a stretch Cygnus pressurized cargo module with 3 docking ports docked with a propulsion & power module.

      Doable and cheap. But could only support a small 2 person semi-expendable multi-stage Lunar lander. Also the low consumables stored aboard restricts the mission duration to no more than a couple of weeks with crew without constant resupply.

      NASA will need a robotic arm of some sort if they want to reduce EVA activities and easier Gateway assembly.

    • Johnhouboltsmyspiritanimal says:
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      I am shocked that bureaucracy within the agency would care more about maintaining the status quo for jobs than making the hard choices to cull the pet projects and make work to be laser focused on the boots on the moon task they were given. /S

    • Brian_M2525 says:
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      The bureaucracy at NASA that came up with the Gateway idea is all about the bureaucracy at NASA (and maintaining the IPs too). There was little or no thought given to making an effective lunar landing architecture. The new Administrator may be about a lunar landing in 5 years, but the system architecture has not changed, so everyone else is working to the old plan. A lot of us are waiting to see whether this is once again just another whim or whether something really changes.

      • Michael Spencer says:
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        The bureaucracy at NASA that came up with the Gateway idea …There was little or no thought given to making an effective lunar landing architecture.

        NASA, like many agencies at every level and of a certain age, excels at ‘studies’ and ‘reports’.

        Even so, how do you support your conclusion that nobody thought about it?

        • Brian_M2525 says:
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          The sole focus has been on Orion and the purpose of Orion was to engage ESA and provide a crew launch capability. Because Orion is based on ATV it is underpowered and cannot support landings. Its a deep space vehicle. For that reason they developed the Gateway concept. Gateway is a base out in the middle of nowhere, it drives you to bigger, more expensive, more dangerous, less capable landers. It was s if landing anyone on the moon was the furthest thing from anyone’s thoughts.

  2. Jeff2Space says:
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    When your vehicles are designed for docking, a robotic arm isn’t strictly needed. But, I’m sure they’ll find uses for it later. Any technology which reduces unnecessary EVAs is a good thing. Save the EVAs for the lunar surface.

    • fcrary says:
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      I’m not sure. Even it’s only for short-duration stays, I think it would be good to have some ability to do external maintenance and repairs. Skylab would have been a complete failure if it weren’t for the EVA work by the first crew. Of course, that presupposes that you do need a habitat in lunar orbit… If you’re just transferring people, cargo and fuel from the orbital tug to the lander, you’re probably only talking about one or two day stays. That’s a different matter.

    • Steve Pemberton says:
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      It’s not necessarily either/or. Robotic arms can be extremely useful during EVA’s to maneuver astronauts around and to provide a stable platform while working.

      • Jeff2Space says:
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        And what would the purpose of those EVAs be at Gateway? If Gateway is just supposed to be a waypoint between earth and the lunar surface, I don’t see any requirement for any EVAs there.

        • fcrary says:
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          What if the gimbals on the solar arrays jam? If NASA is going to spend all that money on Gateway, I’d like them to have a way to fix it if it breaks. But I agree that isn’t any obvious reason for planned, scheduled EVA work out of Gateway.

          • Jeff2Space says:
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            Agreed that a contingency EVA is always a possibility. I don’t think that would be in the critical path though. Depends how likely such a failure would be and much redundancy is built into things that could break, like a solar array gimbal.

          • fcrary says:
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            And those are really hard questions to answer without a clear understanding of how they plan to use Gateway. Is is a safe haven, in case the LEO to NRHO transport has a problem? Or would the safe haven be on the surface? That’s a big difference for repairs of Gateway and how urgent they would be. If something breaks, could they just do without Gateway until they could send a replacement from Earth rather than repair it? Who knows, since that depends on what it’s for and no one seems to have a clear idea of that.

            By the way, using Gateway as a fuel depot makes little sense. That’s only possible if we know how to store and transfer cryogenics in orbit. But if we know how to do that, a super heavy lift vehicle isn’t necessary, since you could tank in LEO. And with that, you could put your lunar orbital fuel depot in a very different and more useful orbit from the one planned for Gateway. There’s a little bit of logical self-consistency lacking.

  3. Shaw_Bob says:
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    Or, just use the technology which the USSR/Russians have been using to perform robotic dockings for the past 50 years, and which only SpaceX is also currently demonstrating. Posting for a friend…

  4. Daniel Woodard says:
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    How about continuing to improve the actual ISS RMS to perform more of the tasks that currently require EVA, i.e. a more compact free-flight robot that can go anywhere on the ISS and get into cramped spaces, with direct tool effectors that avoid the need for a human glove interface? If surgery is robotic, why not ISS maintenance?

    • Jeff2Space says:
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      This is already happening. I believe they recently used the SSRMS (with Dextre?) to replace that faulty electrical distribution box. This can all be commanded by the ground so that astronaut time is not interrupted (much). Cite:

      https://www.nasaspaceflight

  5. Brian_M2525 says:
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    Don’t need an RMS? Probably more efficient without a Gateway and without Orion too. Use a Musk or Bezos Lander and Orbiter.

    • Johnhouboltsmyspiritanimal says:
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      We shall see what sort of concepts get submitted with appendix H this summer. For now they have to pick up crew at NRHO/gateway from Orion but one would think long term for a sustainable lunar base to get regular crew rotations you need a more robust and frequent cislunar crew transport than once a year sls/Orion flight tempo. In the end will Artemis kill Orion as foretold in the legends? I wait with baited breath.

      • Zed_WEASEL says:
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        You are being optimist. The SLS/Orion combo will be lucky to do a flight every 18 months or so, IMO.