Keith’s note: this went out to the NASA Workforce today: “NASA Team: Building a permanent American presence on the Moon is a near-impossible task that only NASA is capable of achieving.
To do so, we will have to rethink not just how we develop the necessary technologies but also how we work together to deliver them. Earlier this year, we asked the engineering teams at Kennedy Space Center to complete an ambitious 90-day sprint to evaluate what Moon Base relevant hardware could be developed on an accelerated schedule. The idea was to specifically challenge legacy processes, clear obstacles, and rapidly deliver flight-ready lunar hardware. The teams focused on two critical capabilities:
- Dust Tolerant Automated Umbilical (DTAU): A dust-resistant connection system that transfers propellants and other fluids in the harsh lunar environment.
- Mini Lunar Electrostatic Dust Mitigation (LEDM): A compact system that removes lunar dust from critical surfaces using a stream of ionized gaseous nitrogen. The sprint was intended to test a production-first approach that emphasized scalability and speed, and the results are notable.
In just 90 days, the teams delivered flight-capable solutions, came in under budget, and established the foundation for further production. The sprint created, what we believe to be, a repeatable production approach that now enables the teams to build four DTAUs and 10 LEDMs on a further reduced timeline.
I share this story with you because this exercise and the associated lessons learned have broad applicability outside Moon Base and KSC engineering.
Congratulations to the Kennedy Space Center Engineering Directorate and Procurement Office for undertaking this exercise. And thank you to the entire NASA workforce. Your commitment and sense of urgency are helping safely take Ignition priorities and turn them into world-changing outcomes.
Jared Isaacman
NASA Administrator
