NASA Human Landing System Announcement Soon
SpaceX bid $2.9 billion for the NASA lunar lander system–far below Blue Origin and Dynetics–and won the contract, according to a source selection document obtained by The Post. Story TK
— Christian Davenport (@wapodavenport) April 16, 2021
Tune in today at 4pm ET for a big announcement about @NASA‘s Artemis mission and plans to land the first woman and person of color on the Moon ? https://t.co/4EFKfPLHxI https://t.co/U1ZiTuW091
— Jackie McGuinness (@jackie_mcg) April 16, 2021
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Well the hearings next week should be interesting…
This is going to have the same stabilizing effect on missions and funding that CC had on F9. Major props to NASA on recognizing and rewarding performance over legacy.
I’m absolutely stunned. I thought given that the SpaceX solution relies upon SuperHeavy development (and thus a second launch vehicle), would be by far the riskiest option. It tethers Artemis and Artemis III to development of Super Heavy, and thus the development of another independent launch system. Not to mention the development of Starship (and its variants), which while going well, have far to go. It seemed logical that the choice would go with Dynetics or the National Team (preferably Dynetics in my opinion) to keep it all within the SLS family.
But maybe that was the motivating factor in the end. The National Team needed several launches to build its vehicle. Using Super Heavy likely dooms SLS Block II. If Super Heavy and Starship variants can do this, than it can do everything (and more) SLS Block II can. Instead of a gradual shift to a SpaceX infrastructure, this sure looks like ripping off the band aid.
It also implies that, before too long, there is probably no point to the entire SLS architecture in NASA’s eyes. That’s something we’ve all discussed a lot here, but this is a logical half step towards that. If you’re flying the landing vehicle to the moon and it’;s a Starship variant, and you’re launching on a Super Heavy…. just do that with the normal Starship (or another variant) for the manned vehicle too. No more Orion. No more SLS.
A lot of us thought that this would happen eventually, but that NASA is pulling the trigger in 2021, that accelerates things considerably. I wonder how much of it has to do with Senator Shelby retiring after 2022. Maybe NASA feels the freedom to do this it hasn’t had?
I also wonder if there is an element of necessity to this beyond just the better in principle approach the Super Heavy-based model requires. Dynetics had the most conservative vehicle, but this is far more ambitious than anything Dynetics has ever done. It is a question as to if they have the engineering competency in this field to pull this off. The National Team required a complicated launch architecture, was a kind of frankenstein monster vehicle, and was driven principally by Blue Origin that at this point is a company that’s long on promises, but short on results. This makes SpaceX the company and bid with the most proven engineering and production acumen. They’ve safely launched people. They’ve developed launch vehicles and landed them with new technologies. Tethering the design to Super Heavy is the assumed of doing business with better team, perhaps.
I do wonder if this is the legacy of Boeing being eliminated early, which as far as an Government space / SLS centric hardware choice, may have been “the mistake” that brought this about (not saying it’s an actual mistake, mind you). Boeing blows past deadlines like it’s anyone’s business, but they have the deepest resources and most experience at building space systems like this of any of them. Boeing would have been the logical choice to produce what amounted to “Apollo Lunar Lander 2.0”, a conservative, over priced, late but government space-friendly vehicle.
But NASA chose something grander and more ambitious. Maybe by necessity. I never thought SpaceX had a chance. I’m glad I was wrong. Their bid (such as we know about it) is the best, for all the reasons it seemed like their selection would be improbable. NASA deserves applause for this bold choice. I’m still incredibly suspicious about the timing of Artemis III now – I just don’t see Starship and Super Heavy development as being ready for something like this until 2027 or 2028 given that they’ll need to do a bunch of flights of Super Heavy before this, prove it’s ability to land at the launch tower and at least one (and more likely, like Apollo, more) orbital shakedowns of the Lunar Starship variant. But at the end of it, NASA gets an affordable way to keep going to the moon that opens the door to replacing the expensive SLS stack with an all-SpaceX solution in short order.
Stunned. Happy. And stunned. But this is very, very, very good for an enduring lunar presence.
My read on this is that it demonstrates that NASA is finally aimed at DOING these things, rather than simply spending money on them. The intimate experience of Kathy Lueders with SpaceX from her former position undoubtably gave their bid a huge boost. She knows what they can do. She knows that they WILL do. This is really a very dramatic turn of events. So many horizons have suddenly come into view.
I’ve gone from Meh about Artemis to legitimately excited.
Shocking indeed. At this point, any project would miss 2024 by at least a couple of years. SH has yet to fly but maybe will do prior to the SLS. It would be humiliating for NASA to land with LM 2.0 alongside a private Starship. And comparing to a little later conventional chinese-russian lander, the SpaceX HLS would be an greeeater advantage in terms of cost and performance.
Indeed. The worst outcome for NASA is not selecting the Moonship and choose either the National team lander or the Dynetics lander then have someone else beats them to the Moon in a Moonship of some sort.
Never mind the last Congress have cast today’s decision by under funding the HLS lander. SpaceX make NASA an offer they can not refuse, otherwise it is likely there will be no operational HLS lander until after 2030.
One other consideration is that by landing a NASA Moonship on the Lunar surface. NASA will have in effect an instant Moonbase. No need to developed the Foundational Surface Habitat.
Really great decision I honestly did not think NASA had the guts to make! I hope Nelson and congress do not change it.
So they pretty much were the only real bidder given NASA’s budget limitations.
Over the years, I have tendered, evaluated, and selected contractors for various projects-nothing of this magnitude, of course.
One of the first things that one does on opening bids is evaluate the spread between high and low. A very large spread generally indicates that either the contractor misunderstood the specifications, or something fishy is going on, like a loss leader.
Every case the spread needs explanation. The questions are obvious: how does contractor a arrive With numbers that are a very large percentage less than the next lowest contractor?
The success or failure of a project depends on a full understanding of the spread.