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Exploration

Lunar Community Responds To Resource Prospector Cancellation (Update)

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
April 27, 2018
Filed under , , , ,
Lunar Community Responds To Resource Prospector Cancellation (Update)

LEAG Letter To NASA Administrator Bridenstine Regarding Resource Prospector Mission
“We wrote to Drs. Gerstenmaier and Zurbuchen to describe the community-wide support for RP on 2 March 2018, after the redirection for this initially HEOMD-led mission to be shared with the new Lunar Exploration and Discovery Program within SMD. We now understand RP was cancelled on 23 April 2018 and the project has been asked to close down by the end of May. This cancellation apparently stemmed from the transfer of RP from HEOMD to SMD due to lack of FY18 funding within the AES program and a misalignment between RP’s goals and schedule and the new lunar program within SMD (which has different goals, timelines, and insufficient capability to deliver the RP payload). This action is viewed with both incredulity and dismay by our community, especially as the President’s Space Policy Directive 1 directs NASA to go to the lunar surface. RP was the only polar lander-rover mission under development by NASA (in fact, by any nation, as all of the international missions to the lunar poles are static landers) and would have been ready for preliminary design review at the beginning of 2019.”
Resource Prospector, NASA
Keith’s 26 April update: Oddly Jim Bridenstine’s Twitter account said this hours after this letter complaining about a canceled lunar robotics mission.

Keith’s 27 April update: I sent the following request to NASA today: ” On 26 April 2018 the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (LEAG) sent a letter to NASA Headquarters stating that the Resource Prospector mission had been cancelled by NASA and that no explanation has been offered as to why it was cancelled. (see http://spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=51363)
However, on 26 April 2018 the official Twitter account @JimBridenstine stated (in part) “… Excited to get to work on our plan to sustainably return America to the surface of the Moon starting with an aggressive robotic program.” (see https://twitter.com/JimBridenstine/status/989653579043614720)
Mr. Bridenstine’s tweet seems to be at odds with action taken simultaneously by NASA HQ.
1. Has the Resource Prospector mission been cancelled by NASA? If so when was it cancelled, who cancelled it, and why was it cancelled?
2. Will NASA be issuing a public statement with regard to the cancellation of the Resource Prospector mission?
3. Will NASA be responding to the letter sent by the LEAG on the topic of the Resource Prospector mission cancellation?
4. How much has NASA spent to date on the Resource Prospector mission?
5. Will any Resource Prospector- related activities continue after the cancellation of the mission itself? If so what activities will continue?
6. Was Administrator Bridenstine referring to the Resource Prospector mission in his tweet?”

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

41 responses to “Lunar Community Responds To Resource Prospector Cancellation (Update)”

  1. ThomasLMatula says:
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    This is exactly why a new agency or PPP is needed to support the economic development of space. This mission should have been flown 30 years ago to prepare for the establishment of a lunar base.

    • Vladislaw says:
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      saw this on fed biz ops… you should propose your mineral floor price idea you talked about

      “Synopsis:

      Added: Apr 24, 2018 12:00 pm

      In May of 2018, NASA will be releasing a NASA Research Announcement (NRA) for Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Commercialization. The purpose of this NRA is to inform NASA’s strategy for enabling the commercialization of human spaceflight in LEO and meeting NASA’s long-term LEO needs. The NRA will solicit industry concepts, business plans and viability for habitable platforms, whether using the International Space Station (ISS) or free-flying, that would enable a commercial marketplace in LEO where NASA is one of many customers. Additionally, the study seeks industry input on the role of government and evolution of ISS in the roadmap to commercialization of LEO.

      NASA anticipates awarding multiple four-month, fixed priced contracts, up to $1M per award. Participation is open to U.S. organizations, including industry, educational institutions, and nonprofit institutions.

      A Pre-Proposal Conference (“industry day”) to discuss the study objectives and proposal instructions with prospective respondents is planned for Tuesday, May 1, in the Gilruth Center at Johnson Space Center. Remote teleconferencing capability will also be available. For more details on this event and to obtain presentation materials, please RSVP to the Contracting Officer via email [email protected]. NASA will later release the NRA including the final proposal instructions, study contents and due date through FedBizOpps at http://www.fbo.gov and NSPIRES at http://nspires.nasaprs.com/… .

      Questions should be directed to [email protected].

      https://www.fbo.gov/index?s

  2. Shaw_Bob says:
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    Sounds like business as usual: the politicians promise big goals, then quietly strangle things which offer genuine results.

    • fcrary says:
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      Honestly, it sounds more like a mistake made in reorganizing. Several programs were shifted around among the Human Exploration, Space Technology and Science Directorates (with Space Technology being reorganized out of existence as a Directorate.) The Resource Prospector missions was moved to SMD, despite the fact that it’s goals aren’t primarily science. And, apparently, the money didn’t move with the mission. That’s a management problem, not a political issue.

  3. fcrary says:
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    “RP was the only polar lander-rover mission under development by NASA (in fact, by any nation, as all of the international missions to the lunar poles are static landers)…”

    No. The Chang’e 4 lander, scheduled for launch late this year, is basically a reflight of Chang’e 3 landing on the lunar farside. It consists of a 1200 kg static lander and a 120 kg rover. The rover may or may not be similar to the Chang’e 3 Yutu rover. (E.g. it may not be a copy, but more like the relation between the Curiosity Mars rover and the 2020 Mars rover.)

    I’d think that would be the sort of detail the chairs of the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group would be aware of.

    • Phil Stooke says:
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      Alas, no, Chang’E 4 is NOT going to the south (or any other) pole. Its landing site is squarely within the mid-latitudes.

    • moon2mars says:
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      The Chang’e 4 landing site will be within the scientifically intriguing South Pole-Aitken Basin on the farside. Some candidate sites including Von Kármán Crater (45°S).

    • space1999 says:
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      I think they were saying that RP is the only *polar* rover mission… e.g., a landing site within ~5 degrees of the poles. Will Chang’e 4 be that close to the either pole?

      • fcrary says:
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        I did miss the “polar” part. But why 5 degrees? For the purposes of ice prospecting (which, I think is what matters for the uniqueness of Resource Prospector), you need access to areas in permanent shadow. Chang’e 4 and Yutu-2 (or whatever they name it) aren’t going to land in permanent shadow, so it’s a moot point. But how steep is the southern rim of Von Kármán crater? Even at 45 deg. south latitude, a steep enough slope could produce permanent shadow.

        • space1999 says:
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          Yes, 5 degrees was arbitrary and pulled out of thin air. And definitely, the key criteria is not some arbitrary proximity to the pole, but whether a region is permanently shadowed or not.

  4. rb1957 says:
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    referring to the update … maybe it takes time for the head to realise what’s happening at the feet (like a dinosaur?).

  5. mfwright says:
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    I wonder if it was orchestrated by the Mars Underground. Unlike missions such as Curiosity, many lunar missions are short-lived so not good long-term employment.

    • moon2mars says:
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      The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has been orbiting and working at the Moon since June 23, 2009 and is still going strong.

      • mfwright says:
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        Yes, but I don’t think it has the deep pockets of Mars stuff. LRO has performed quite well, we definitely got our money’s worth (especially comparing to reprocessed LO images). Other missions i.e. LCROSS and LADEE were short duration but good examples of quick, lowcost missions, just need more but I guess we leave those missions to other countries.

      • fcrary says:
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        And the two ARTEMIS spacecraft, the lunar orbit extended mission of the THEMIS mission, started in 2010. They’re still operating.

    • DougSpace says:
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      I think that the Mars (-not-so-) Underground is winning on delaying human-scale lunar landers and keeping human spaceflight confined to lunar orbit as “feed forward” to Mars. But it is the many commercial-everything advocates who view commercial lunar landers as a better approach to lunar prospecting. My guess is that the view of resource prospecting has less to do with finding a good site for a crewed base as it has to do with establishing small robotic but “commercial” operations on the Moon. This is why it is being described as aggressive and robust. The plan is probably to use these small commercial lander missions to extensively prospect for resources for later commercial development.

      • mfwright says:
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        Which sounds like Resource Prospector can be that NACA type of activity to help commercial developments.

  6. Alan Boyle says:
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    I wonder if someone decided that Resource Prospector was likely to be leapfrogged by commercial lander / rovers that are in the works. NASA’s “DNA chart” for lunar exploration shows about six commercial lunar landings anticipated by 2022, if I’m not mistaken. (Which is always a possibility.)

    • DougSpace says:
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      I suspect that you’ve largely nailed it on the head. “Commercial space” is getting a tremendous amount of support. So, even though NASA could move ahead with the Resource Prospector mission if adequately funded, the fact that small commercial landers are getting close means that they will get the priority for funding independent if cost or schedule.

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      Maybe; but NASA does have a ‘not invented here’ history. If you are with — and I hope you are — perhaps that sort of thinking will spill into SLS management.

  7. Henry Vanderbilt says:
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    Ten years underway and just next year getting to Preliminary Design Review? It does not sound as if anyone has been flooding the lunar polar lander/rover mission with funding and priority so far.

    Reading their letter, they seem to clearly understand Research Prospector is a first attempt at the mission, and as such, sooner is better, to learn ASAP how to improve the followons.

    So, now Human Exploration has just offloaded this mission to Science, but kept the funding? Hmm. What’s going on in HE that might incline them to hoard funding while putting off near-term resource-survey missions that might result in opportunities far larger than HE as currently configured could handle?

    So, keeping a bit more money for SLS while pushing back indefinitely resource-survey results that would create huge political pressure against HE business-as-usual. What’s not to like?

    Unless of course you care about actually exploring and expanding into space anytime soon.

    Sounds like the new Administrator has an immediate opportunity to knock some heads together and set an example here.

    • fcrary says:
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      I’m seeing some contradictory things about the schedule and budget. From an abstract for the last LEAG meeting, it looks like Phase A for Resource Prospector started in 2014, and it (or something very similar) had been previous proposed as a New Frontiers mission and not selected. The non-selection isn’t a surprise, since the only responsive lunar mission would be a south pole sample return. I can’t find anything about ten years, and I don’t know where that comes from. But four years for a phase A and B, which is to say before the preliminary design review, is a little longer than I’d expect. Europa Clipper, for example, has taken three years.

      For the budget, Planetary Science did well in the proposed FY19 budget, and $218 million is for a new “Lunar Discovery and Exploration” program, with $18 of that for continued Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter operations and $200 million for unspecified “Lunar Future” activities. On the human spaceflight side, it looks like Advanced Exploration Systems also got more money, but lots of things moved around and I think most of their budget is going to the Lunar Orbital Platform – Gateway. The budget doesn’t even mention Resource Prospector,. There is more discussion of getting commercial transport services (to lunar orbit and the surface) in place rather than plans for future missions.

      In any case, that’s the proposed FY19 budget, and I didn’t think anything had gone badly wrong in the FY18 actual budget. But it’s entirely possible that the reorganization did happen and the shifts in funding didn’t. The one comes from the administration and the other from Congress.

      • Henry Vanderbilt says:
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        On checking, “ten years underway” came from my overhasty reading of various background pieces. Oops!

        I would expect, as tends to be the nature of these things, that an informal group has existed to push the concept for quite some time before it ever became a formally funded project in 2014. For ten years? Quite possibly longer. But no, not near that long as an official program.

        I think my point about an apparent lack of urgency stands, however. Else the project wouldn’t currently be falling through this “it’s science, you fund it” “no, it’s exploration, you fund it” crack.

        I think this should have become a top NASA priority as soon as the LCROSS and Chandrayaan-1 results came in, meaning we should have seen the first polar probes landed near half a decade ago with the second-gen followups in place now and returning data.

        Instead, it apparently took half a decade just to get a formal project underway.

        The current “we don’t want it, you take it” SNAFU on a matter of central importance to developing robust affordable inner-system transport infrastructure is, in my opinion, a national disgrace.

        • fcrary says:
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          Well, I’m sympathetic to “…falling through this “it’s science, you fund it” “no, it’s exploration, you fund it” crack.” I study planetary magnetospheres, so I frequently wind up in a “no, it’s another planet, you fund it” versus ”no, it’s plasma physics, you fund it” situation. I’m also sympathetic to lunar missions (only four US missions since Apollo) and “poor, neglected Venus” (yes there have been 24 missions to Venus, but none by NASA since Magellan other than flybys that really wanted to go somewhere else. And I’m quoting a planetary scientists who is vocally and sarcastically pro Uranus/Neptune First…)

          But the problem (other than whatever caused the recent cancelation) isn’t the price or schedule. For Resource Prospector, those aren’t exceptionally high or long by the standards of planetary science missions. So I don’t agree that this is a sign of neglect. It’s a sign that the budgets and flight rates are so low that _many_ promising missions take a decade or more to go from conception to flight.

          • Henry Vanderbilt says:
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            I won’t argue with you about there being far more worthy space science mission concepts than a given year’s funding will support.

            My point is that this isn’t (primarily) a space science mission (though it will produce interesting science) and it should never have been forced to compete for priority solely as such.

            It’s a space resource survey mission, for a resource potentially hugely useful to affordable exploration & development.

            Yeah, not everybody agrees with me that making E&D affordable and doing lots of it soon should be top priority. But that argument should be made explicitly, not by budgetary chicanery.

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            Here’s a line of thinking that appears to be entirely consistent with that of the new Administrator, and those of his political persuasion:

            “a resource potentially hugely useful to affordable exploration & development”

            As far as I know, there are no governmental agencies doing early exploration work for petrochemicals here on Terra. This huge expense is borne by consortia of private companies.

            I wonder how Luna is different? If useful lodes are found, exploitation surely wouldn’t be NASA’s job.

          • Paul451 says:
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            Governments spend a fortune paying for large scale geological, geochemical, gravimetric mapping of potentially valuable regions, (as well as funding and co-funding university research) the analysed results are then given (or sold at very low cost) to resource companies, who hunt for hotspots in the data and do point surveys (such as test drilling) at locations they identify from govt/university data. Only the last part is commercial.

            (Long time ago I did a couple of years working for the local Dept of Mines.)

          • fcrary says:
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            This is probably a bit like more conventional research and development. At this point, the uncertainties in lunar resources are probably too great, and commercial companies wouldn’t be interested. We know there is ice in some places, but we don’t know exactly where (including how deep below the surface), how it is mixed in with regolith, or how much work would be involved in extracting and processing it. You can’t build a business plan around something that’s that uncertain. If the initial work is going to be done, it’s probably going to be funded by the government or a rich patron (as a personal interest or speculation, not as a for-profit commercial venture.)

            But that’s not too different from other sorts of research the government funds. At first, many very profitable things are pretty uncertain (e.g. lasers, or the internet) and the research is unlikely to attract commercial funding. Much of the initial work is done at government labs or at universities funded by government grants (or by private donations.) Once it’s clear that the idea has viable, commercial potential, the funding and work shift from the government to industry.

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            My comment wasn’t meant to disagree with “official” efforts to characterize the resource; this is something that I support.

            It’s just that so much of the talk about the proper roles of government and are enterprise seem so Randian, that’s all, and here we have a case where the government is encouraged to take substantial risk.

            Inconsistent, that’s all.

          • fcrary says:
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            Oddly, it looks like the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group was the one who suggested making Resource Prospector a science mission. At least sort of. I was poking around on their web site to find some details about RP (like the cost, and all I could find about that was the implication a similar mission had been proposed as a New Frontiers mission.) I did come across a LEAG finding about RP. They wanted to get NASA’s Science Mission Directorate involved, so they could get some extra money and enhance the RP mission.

        • Henry Vanderbilt says:
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          Hmm. In light of Keith’s followon piece “Trying To Understand What NASA Is Saying About Resource Prospector”, not to mention the one right after, “Commercial Lunar Payload Services”, it looks like there may be more here than met the eye at first.

          Short version: If in fact the new Administrator is able to fly Resource Prospector instruments on commercial landers, I see potential for getting far more resource survey data far sooner than under the traditional NASA science lander development process. I provisionally retract my “national disgrace” comment…

          • fcrary says:
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            It’s a minor detail, but that isn’t quite how I would do it. I’d want a commercially provided, generic lander and a NASA provided, custom science payload. At least assuming a significant number of landings are anticipated (i.e. enough to make it worthwhile to make all the commercial landers the same.) That would make me inclined to put the rover, as well as the instruments, on the NASA side.

            The commercial service would be getting a static lander, with a ramp and customer-supplied payload, to the surface. Maybe a second version wit the ramp removed and power and telecom services added (for occasions where the customer wants instruments at a fixed site rather than on a rover.)

          • Henry Vanderbilt says:
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            (I’m not sure we’re actually disagreeing on anything – neither the new Administrator’s tweet nor my quick comment go into that much detail. But, that said…)

            From the NASA-instruments-provider transport-customer POV, one fixed predictable unvarying lander design would make life easier, yes.

            But the policy reasons for commercial landers seem to include encouraging rapid evolution of better and larger landers. This implies multiple evolving marks of multiple designs. (Think Falcon 9’s ongoing design evolution, with competitors.)

            So NASA instrument providers will have some degree of stability, but well short of absolute.

            Their upside is they should get far more opportunity to tune and refly instruments, with far faster turnaround, to far more different sites, than under the current one-or-two-landers-then-move-on model.

          • fcrary says:
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            I don’t think we’re disagreeing and this is an implementation detail. One detail occurred to me, so I just tossed it our for people to think about. But, now that you mention it, I think the initial, small landers could see continued use. A small Rover for local site studies could be reflown many times to many different sites (with learn-as-you-go upgrades.) Seismic studies benefit from having multiple stations. Etc. Even once a larger, second generation, commercial landers comes along, I think there would still be enough demand to keep flying the original, smaller landers.

          • Henry Vanderbilt says:
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            Or a given lander with modest storable delta-V reserves could make multiple short hops to different sites after its initial landing. Possibly cheaper than a rover, certainly a way to cover multiple points in local terrain too steep/rough for a rover.

            Also perhaps a cheap non-nuclear way to cover points in permanent shadow? Land, take readings, take off again before the cold soaks in or the battery runs down.

            One aspect of the multiple production lander/rovers to multiple sites you mention is that higher per-lander/rover risk levels should be acceptable if you can afford to lose one occasionally. IE, much lower per-copy costs.

            It’ll be interesting to see how implementation of what is still a very general policy actually shapes up. Exciting times, eh?

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            “Or a given lander with modest storable delta-V reserves could make multiple short hops to different sites after its initial landing.”

            Robert Zubrin’s recent piece on how to get to the moon using only F9 includes some ideas, using ISRU resources, on how to do this sort of exploration with a propulsive lander that could also return to LEO with samples.

        • space1999 says:
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          The precursor to RP was the RESOLVE project. See: https://www.nasa.gov/explor

        • Jennifer Petelle says:
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          Look up RESOLVE, previous project name. Easily ten years in the making.

  8. fcrary says:
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    I can’t predict what NASA will do, but I can take a stab at your third questions, about whether NASA will respond to the letter from the LEAG chairs. They probably will, in some form and by next fall. The various AGs (planetary science assessment or analysis groups) submit a list of findings after their meetings. At the next meeting, someone from headquarters traditionally presents a response to those findings. I strongly suspect this letter will be treated in the same way.

    LEAG seems to have one meeting per year, in late fall. So we may have to wait for half a year or so.

    The responses from headquarters are not always satisfactory. OPAG (which has two meetings per year), for example, sent in a findings about diversity and what NASA was doing to address the problem (e.g. shifting to double blind reviews of proposals) after their fall, 2017 meeting. At their spring, 2017 meeting, the response from headquarters was, in effect, a vague, “we’re talking about things we might do,” without mentioning what those things might be. So OPAG sent in another finding saying that wasn’t a satisfactory answer and that they wanted more details.

    So, when it comes to the LEAG letter about RP, I believe their will be a response from headquarters. But don’t count on it being prompt and don’t bet good money on it being highly informative.

  9. Michael Spencer says:
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    Maybe Jim has a better idea?