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Artemis

NASA Announces Additional Commercial Moon Delivery Providers

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
November 18, 2019
NASA Announces Additional Commercial Moon Delivery Providers

Keith’s note: The announcement starts at 4:30 pm EST and will be carried live on NASA TV
New Companies Join Growing Ranks of NASA Partners for Artemis Program
“The selected companies are:
Blue Origin, Kent, Washington
Ceres Robotics, Palo Alto, California
Sierra Nevada Corporation, Louisville, Colorado
SpaceX, Hawthorne, California
Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems Inc., Irvine, California”

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

14 responses to “NASA Announces Additional Commercial Moon Delivery Providers”

  1. Terry Stetler says:
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    And one is the recently updated Cargo Starship, which has grown clamshell doors and an elevator platform.

    https://twitter.com/gleeson

    • Jeff2Space says:
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      Looking forward to seeing this flying. The sheer scale of Starship makes the other proposed landers look positively puny by comparison. I love how the render shows not one but two crewed rovers being delivered at once.

      • Zed_WEASEL says:
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        There seems to be room for 4 SEV rovers in that render of a Starship Lunar Delivery variant.

        Too bad NASA can only get 2 Astronauts to the Lunar surface with their 3 element LEGO lander. Maybe they might consider a manned lander upgrade.

    • BigTedd says:
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      Yep Starship if it works will make SLS seem like a childs toy !

  2. TiminSoCal says:
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    Only one of them has ever orbited payload, correct?
    Seems…..ambitious for the others.
    But then an actual moon landing by Artemis in the next decade also seems …….ambitious.

    • mfwright says:
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      What is news is many more people are talking about the moon, not on forums but of spending money. I expect some action that will be interesting. Ames’ VIPER rover will be provided by CLPS and there was a time not long ago nobody except Spudis and Wingo talked about the moon.

    • BigTedd says:
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      Still trying to work out how and why Blue Origin even gets a look in , they should be just laughed at!

      • Michael Spencer says:
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        I can only think that the folks who matter- that is, those with $$$ or regulatory responsibility- have been inside the big buildings.

    • fcrary says:
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      This isn’t about launching payloads to orbit. It’s about building and operating a spacecraft, specifically one someone else launches and which gets itself to the Moon and lands. Both Tyvak and SNC have a good track record for building and operating spacecraft. Arguably a longer and better one than SpaceX.

      • Not Invented Here says:
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        Beg to differ, SpaceX flew and recovered a Dragon in 2010, and docked a Dragon to ISS in 2012, they have flown and recovered 19 Dragons, and now they have also flown more than 100 smallsats in a constellation. Oh, they also have a Crew Dragon in development… I’d say their spacecraft building and operation experience is much more than Tyvak and SNC.

        • fcrary says:
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          Well, I did write “arguably” more experience for a reason, and now you’re arguing. I wouldn’t count Starlink too heavily, since that’s a constellation of more-or-less identical spacecraft and all flown in the last year. The lunar landers are one-off spacecraft with custom payloads. Put it differently, SpaceX has built and operated two spacecraft (by model not repeats of the same model), possibly three (if you count Dragon and Dragon 2 separately.) Tyvak and SNC have built and operated far more in roughly the same time frame. But I’m not adamant on that point. I am quite sure, however, that three of the five companies in question have plenty of experience with building and operating spacecraft. The original comment claimed that only one does. That is not correct.

  3. Michael Spencer says:
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    I don’t envy the NASA folks this task.

    Frequently I am searching for contractors/ vendors to do this, or that; but in my world, I differentiate the vendors on price, and on history. The historical ability to perform is the price of admission in my world.

    What would I do if I had to meet a bunch of enthusiasts in a conference room, armed with Powerpoint, and an invoice, asking for front money because

    “Well, we have this neat idea! It will work, sir, I promise, we just need $100 million dollars!”

    It’s a bit over simplified, for sure, but not much. Not only do these managers go out on a limb, they also have the likes of me and everyone else around these parts, all biting at their heels lest they ‘waste taxpayer money!’.

    No, sir. Not at all enviable.

    Added, 24 hours later: I didn’t mean to say that the methods managers use are wrong. Indeed I’ve argued many times that NASA’s assistance in tech development is right, and proper, when conservatively considered. Only that it’s a hairy decision. These guys live in a bleeding edge world.

    • fcrary says:
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      It’s not quite that bad. At this stage, they’re only qualifying companies to bid on future proposals. In those future proposals, the companies will need to do better than presenting a neat idea and showing some nice graphics. But even then, NASA is going to be making selections on hardware that hasn’t flown yet (probably.) If the commercial cargo and crew programs are any guide, they’ll probably do it with phased development contracts and milestones. For initial development and proofs of concept, they don’t risk as much money and it’s understood that some of the ideas won’t pan out.