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Artemis

Formal NASA Human Lander Announced

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
April 16, 2021
Filed under , ,
Formal NASA Human Lander Announced

NASA Picks SpaceX to Land Next Americans on Moon
“At least one of those astronauts will make history as the first woman on the Moon. Another goal of the Artemis program includes landing the first person of color on the lunar surface. The firm-fixed price, milestone-based contract total award value is $2.89 billion.”

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

36 responses to “Formal NASA Human Lander Announced”

  1. Hmmm says:
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    SpaceX. Well, this will be interesting.

  2. Rockteer says:
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    It’s an exciting decision to select SpaceX and its super heavy booster, that does indeed bring serious competitive pressure to the SLS. I am looking forward to seeing how this will impact the losing HLS bidders and how their plans will necessarily evolve.

  3. Jeff2Space says:
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    Holy crap! That’s going to really tick off a lot of people.

    • Jack says:
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      Yep and it’s going to be fun to watch.

    • Jonna31 says:
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      *tick of a lot of the right people.
      It’s an exciting day for people who truly believe in an enduring human presence in space. And a disastrous day for people who see the Space program solely in terms of turning taxpayer dollars into jobs in Alabama and so forth.

      • Zed_WEASEL says:
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        The folks from Alabama could have avoid all this by insisting on a more robust budget for the HLS lander.

        Currently NASA can have the SpaceX Moonship in a few years or wait at least 2 presidential terms for something else.

        • kcowing says:
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          But there is not going to be a bigger budget, They could not even get open when the Republicans control the WH and Senate.

          • Zed_WEASEL says:
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            Not the top line budget. Just shifted some SLS pork feed so that two HLS lander provider gets funded moderately.

            Another HLS lander provider means more payroll in Alabama, since the National Team and Dynetics will use facilities there.

  4. ed2291 says:
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    Really great decision I honestly did not think NASA had the guts to make! I hope Nelson and congress do not change it.

  5. Bernardo Senna says:
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    Nasa will have an unmatched capabilitty for the construction of a moon base.

  6. Granit says:
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    Seems inefficient to land that entire vehicle on the moon. There is a reason why rockets are staged.

    • kcowing says:
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      You need to read up more on how Starship works.

      • ed2291 says:
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        Keith is right. It is amazing how much criticism of Space X comes from people who know absolutely nothing about Space X.

        • Matthew Black says:
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          Oh; they know alright. It comes under the category of sour grapes or willful ignorance. Their mileage may vary.

    • Vladislaw says:
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      It is totally reusable and can land up to 100 tons. The reason rockets were staged was to optimize each engine for that part of the flight through the atmosphere. NASA can land so much redundant hardware now that they can go with cheaper designs, because if one fails roll out another one. Rovers, power stations, batteries etc..

  7. Synthguy says:
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    This is fantastic news for SpaceX and pretty much guarantees a future for Starship Super Heavy. It does raise real questions for the future of SLS. SpaceX will launch Lunar Starship HLS via Super Heavy to get it out to LLO to rendezvous with NASA Orion. Based on Musk’s estimates (he could be wrong) it will cost US$2m per launch of a Super Heavy/Lunar Starship. Estimates put SLS launch cost at $US2Bn per launch at the rate of one a year. Whilst NASA will try to reduce that ridiculous cost, I doubt they can make what is essentially a 1970s/80s era technology concept that is fully expendable competitive with a 21st Century engineering concept like Starship. So NASA will go with the outdated, obsolete SLS concept – but for how long?

    Yes, SLS is mandated by Congress, so just can’t be killed – but at a certain point its going to become painfully obvious to all that SLS is the wrong approach. Perhaps SLS needs to be retasked, away from Moon to Mars to something else? But then the challenge is payload. SLS Block 1 (assume they don’t go to Block 2) is about 70 tons to LEO – Starship Super Heavy is 150 tons to LEO and with on-orbit refuelling, 150 tons to anywhere else. So SLS can’t compete in terms of payload to orbit, cost, flexibility or mission responsiveness. How does it compete? What can it do, if it’s not competitive on Moon to Mars?

    Honest answer is I don’t have a good answer. There’s nothing that SLS could do which Starship Super Heavy couldn’t do better, cheaper and faster.

    SLS is the proverbial millstone around NASA’s neck, sucking funds away from other tasks, without providing anything in return. Yet, because its rife with Congressional pork, and neither NASA nor the Administration has the means or the resolve to stand up to Congress, they appear stuck with it.

    One answer might be for NASA to retask funds and expertise on SLS into something entirely different, that can actually deliver new capability. We talk about Moon to Mars – so why not begin work on credible capabilities for actually getting humans to Mars. Orion simply won’t be sufficient (four astronauts in that tin can for nine-months – they’d go nuts), so start work on a nuclear propelled Mars Transfer Vehicle, which maybe is built in space, and which remains in space with modules deployed by both SLS and also Starship. A small fleet of such ‘spaceships’ could enable wider exploration of Moon, Mars, Venus orbit missions, near-Earth asteroid exploration, or even a Ceres mission. Getting NASA to shift gears and think completely on a new direction is the sensible thing to do, if they want to provide an alternative to Congress for SLS that still is attractive politically.

    • ed2291 says:
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      Excellent and very accurate summary: “SLS can’t compete in terms of payload to orbit, cost, flexibility or mission responsiveness.”

    • space1999 says:
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      Your point is taken, although it appears that your figures are a bit off. According to the Starship User’s Guide, payload to LEO is 100+ metric tons, which is ~220,000+ lbs. From Wikipedia, the SLS Block 1 payload to LEO is 209,000 lbs, Block 1B is 231,000 lbs to LEO, and Block 2 is 290,000 lbs to LEO. SS will have the obvious advantage of being reusable, and with refueling, could put that payload just about anywhere. For comparison (again from Wikipedia), the Saturn V’s payload to LEO was 310,000 lbs… that includes the third stage and above.

    • Zed_WEASEL says:
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      To put things into prospective. The value of the HLS lander contract that SpaceX was awarded is about what ONE launch of the SLS Block 1 with an Orion will cost after you accounted for everything.

      Also the Mars Transfer vehicle concept is on life support with not a lot time left. Why would anyone spend tens of billions to developed a new Mars vehicle when the folks from Hawthorne could sell you rides there in the near future.

      The Congressional pork should be reallocated to what you put in those rides from Hawthorne.

      • Dr. Malcolm Davis says:
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        Re Mars Transfer Vehicle vs Starship to Mars, I remain a bit skeptical of the latter. Yes, Starship is way more accommodating than an Orion capsule, but its still quite confining for a 9 month transit to Mars, with say, a crew of six astronauts. I’d see Starship as one component of a larger vehicle, that is assembled in either Earth or Lunar orbit, with modules and components launched by Starship from Earth, and which would be nuclear powered. Mars landing and return would be via attached Starships from the MTV. Return to Earth is via Starship too.

        If we think in terms of complete reusability, we’d seek to have a small fleet of such transfer vehicles – say three to five – assembled and available for a variety of missions – and they remain in space.

        If we can build the ISS in space, we can build large multi-use reusable spacecraft in space for a variety of missions – not just Mars. To me, this is a more practical way to get to Mars than a single Starship which is yet to demonstrate crew safety or support for such an extended voyage.

        • Zed_WEASEL says:
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          You do realize the internal pressurized volume of the Starship is about 1000 cubic meters. Rough the same as the ISS, except the ISS is cramped with stuff in that volume.

          The projected transit time from Earth to Mars with the Starship is about 120 to 150 days depending on planetary alignment.

          Again. Why would anyone spend tens of billions to developed a new Mars vehicle? That is even without the added cost of a high power fission reactor.

          Finally, SpaceX will be sending at least 2 crewed Starships per transit window along with additional cargo Starships. The eventual goal is transporting several thousand persons during each transit window to Mars.

    • Vladislaw says:
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      The only thing I saw where SLS can do something that starship is not configured for is sending hardware to outer planets with the high energy second stage.

  8. Russel aka 'Rusty' Shackleford says:
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    Awesome decision! Does this mean that a 2024 landing is back on the table Keith?

    • kcowing says:
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      Probably not …

      • ed2291 says:
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        Very probably not but not absolute certainty not. Exciting times!

      • Bernardo Senna says:
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        We use to expect the same tradition, tradition tratition mindset for the big contracts. But as the tide kind of changed since CRS, finally NASA is confident enough on the cheaper bid. Moonship needs much testing, but the project fase looks more advanced and it’s simplier than the othe bids.

  9. mfwright says:
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    I wonder if there are other items not publicly mentioned of why SpaceX was selected (I haven’t read everything so I could easily miss something). I don’t know much about the Starship but one thing certain it is real though many times flight end in pieces. For the other companies we haven’t seen much. SpaceX in spite of missing schedules they at least have a working human rated spacecraft.

    I’d like to see some basic outline how it will land humans on the moon, I see a lot of stuff but it seems something is missing from the puzzle. As a little boy during Apollo, the LEM made sense. Whatever, we do see lander contract go to a company that didn’t exist prior to the 21st century. And with all the drama, could all this be made into a Broadway musical?

  10. Jonna31 says:
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    With this, can we start taking a far more skeptical look at Blue Origin. For years they were pushed as another major entrant into new space. For years they acted like a SpaceX competitor. It’s quite clear, they are not.

    New Glenn is years behind schedule. It’s fabrication facilities were supposedly finished in 2019 – already late mind you. In March, the first launch got pushed back to late 2022. They have rolled out no hardware ,and shown no progress. From other reporting, it’s clear that New Glenn is not a priority for them. And why should it be? When it launches in 2022, it’ll have much more performance than a Falcon 9, but much less than a Falcon Heavy. Not exactly a growth area for a commercial launcher. Technologically, it’ll be similar to the Falcon 9 in rough launch-landing scheme, but SpaceX is moving onto Starship and Super Heavy, and New Glenn isn’t anywhere close to that.

    They keep messing with New Shepard, probably because it’s cheap. Now they want to provide commercial suborbital flights… because apparently, they’re now a competitor for Virgin Galactic or something? That’s…. interesting. And they stage a launch two days ago, that given this announcement, really seems like a “we’re still here and relevant” wail.

    Meanwhile, they don’t win contracts with the Air Force. They don’t win contracts with NASA. New Glenn has no customers planned. And they’re also providing engines for a competitor on Vulcan-Centaur, itself a Frankenstein’s monster vehicle.

    This is a very strange way to run a company that aimed to take on SpaceX. Their New Glenn selling point was supposed to be ride share, something SpaceX does with already and Starship will be based around.

    Does Blue Origin want to be another SpaceX really? Because it seems much more like it wants to be another Aerojet with a bit of Lockheed Martin Space sprinkled in. It seems like they’re more interested in space technologies and being a subcontractor, than being another SpaceX, ULA or even pre-merger Orbital?

    We’re in the place now, where I think it’s fair to ask of Blue Origin, “what’s the point of you”? It’s harsh, but considering they’re a rocket company that doesn’t actually launch rockets to orbit, that they don’t win major contracts, and that they subcontract their core product, the BE-4 (that itself has not actually flown yet) out to a competitor.

    If Bezos weren’t the richest man in the world, they’d already be hosed. I’m really getting flashbacks to the many long-on-promises-short-on-deliverables new space companies that, against all odds, SpaceX turned out to to be.

    They need to do something other than just launch New Shepards, and they need to do it soon.

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      “ is a very strange way to run a company ”

      Yes. Mr. Bezos rep as a creative giant, able to identify opportunities where others are stuck in oldthink requires some deep thinking. Perhaps Amazon is a one-off stroke of incredible luck?

      So much here is inexplicable.

      • Jonna31 says:
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        It indeed makes no sense.

        Blue Origin was supposed to be a vertically integrated SpaceX style peer, that engaged in iterative development of engines and rockets to arrive at the New Glenn, in it’s way retracing the steps SpaceX made with Merlin-1C to Falcon 1, to the progressively more capable versions of Falcon 9. It turns out it is not that. Instead Blue Origin will now manufacture engines for its nominal competitor, ULA. It will commercialize New Shepard even though that was originally supposed to be a developmental vehicle on the way to New Glenn and nothing more. It competes for contracts well outside the wheelhouse of a company that was trying to stand up basic orbital launch services first: a lunar lander, National Security Launch contracts of the Delta IV heavy class to GTO, and most recently the spacecraft bus for the DARPA nuclear thermal rocket test program (Lockheed Martin was the other winner, with General Atomics building the reactor). Meanwhile New Glenn moves ever further to the right, clearly not a priority.

        To what degree is Jeff Bezos running Blue Origin day to day? It appears not much. Reportedly, he only spends one day a week on Blue Origin. Elon Musk, for all his picadillos, has been intensely involved in SpaceX management and development from the start. The way it’s alway seemed to me is that Tesla pays the bills (and then some, it’s made him the second richest man in the world), but SpaceX is his passion. But with Blue Origin, Bezos seems entirely uninvolved beyond a periodic photo-op and meeting. It sounds more and more like a rich man’s money sink.

        Meanwhile Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith is old space and old defense contractor to the core. He’s spent the past 20 years working at Honeywell, and before that United Space Alliance. His resume reads as someone that, if he were not at Blue Origin, would find a nice comfy seat at Boeing or Lockheed Martin. Not exactly a guy with a background in “move fast and break things” ethos.

        And CEO, he’d be the one designing the corporate strategy, which seems to be “pay lip service to vertical integration, but try to win contracts in anything space-related we can”? Again, not the stuff of a SpaceX competitor.

        And then with regards to Bezos,we should be clear about his Amazon involvement. He founded it and has been CEO the entire time (but plans to step down at some point in the next year). But reportedly he has been less and less involved with Amazon for years now. Until last year wasn’t involved in day to day management since around 2007. He only got back in involved because of the pandemic. Just before that, he called into board meetings, but missed earnings calls for years on end. He said he was proud of Amazon’s ability to run itself.

        Now that’s a good thing in a way. Hiring people who can do that job and expand a company past its original vision is an essential part of good leadership. The complexities of world are too complicated for one guy to be the end all be all. No one can have that level of expertise – they’d only ever get, as you’d say, lucky. Amazon is a great example of that, because Amazon has changed, a lot, since he created it. It’s gone from books to partnerships to all products. It’s gone from computer-based mail order filler to being a massive logistics company in its own right. It is a popular streaming service, and let’s not forget Amazon Web Services is it’s big money maker, a huge share of its profits, and runs like a quarter the internet. Not bad for an internet bookstore.

        But Blue Origin isn’t even close to that. Far from a SpaceX competitor, it looks more and more like a Virgin Galactic-level space company that has ambitions for other things. But not a single thing it has produced gone into orbit.

        If I were NASA and the DoD, I’d steer far clear of this company until it actually shows off some ready-to-go deliverables in the form of a New Glenn or ready-to-launch spacecraft bus. And if I were ULA, I’d really take another look at the Aerojet AR1.

  11. Bill Housley says:
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    Really big surprise.

    If Congress whines about it, then NASA can say, “Look, you wouldn’t give us more money, so there you go we picked the least expensive option. If you want the more expensive option (i.e. the lobby lander) then throw more money in the hat for it.”