Big news! Just announced! SpaceX's Starship Lunar Lander variant wins!!
The Artemis plan seems to be for nasa astronauts to launch from Earth in an Orion capsule on an SLS Moon Rocket. It will travel to orbit around the moon where the astronauts will meet up with their lander in lunar orbit. The lander will launch from Earth on a different booster, a Superheavy in this case. The plan is to eventually build a mini ISS style modular space station called Gateway in orbit around the Moon where this takes place. Then the lander will descend and land on the Moon.
I'm surprised frankly. This one was by far the riskiest of the three shortlisted lander options, but also had incomparably the most upside. Kudos to nasa for taking the risk.
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/as-ar...ns-on-moon
https://twitter.com/KathyLueders/status/...4258629640
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1383160370248896512
https://twitter.com/NASASpaceflight/stat...9010260999
Justification was that Starship has by far the most capacity and downmass. (Artemis proposes to land 2 astronauts on the Moon's surface. Starship could land 100.) SpaceX is also developing orbital refueling technology that all three contenders would eventually need. They liked that it's one stage that both descends to the Moon and launches back to lunar orbit. And in her remarks Kathy Lueders let slip another motivation too, that Starship promises to eventually open up Mars and the rest of the solar system. They obviously want to be part of it.
Something they didn't mention but no doubt was a big consideration is that SpaceX's bid was by far the lowest cost of the three contenders since SpaceX is footing the bill for most Starship development themselves and their HLS proposal is just a variant on that, not an entirely new vehicle. (And building out of stainless steel is far cheaper than high tech carbon fiber.)
SpaceX beat out the "national team" built around Blue's Blue Moon lander with participation by Lockheed Martin and northrop Grumman. This was the most expensive and least innovative alternative, kind of a redo of the Apollo landers. But safest with the established aerospace names.
And they beat out Dynetics which had a much better design than Blue's in my opinion. Less expensive too. I'm sorry to see them left in SpaceX's dust. Good company. I was hoping that nasa would go with two landers for dissimilar redundancy. SX and Dynetics combined would still cost less than the 'national team' lander.
But despite my sadness for Dynetics, I'm very pleased that nasa went with futuristic vision. Frankly, I didn't expect it.
Elon wants to see humanity all over the solar system Expanse style. So he wins big if he's the one who tempted nasa off their risk-averse behinds.
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/y-sA3R4MWjA
The Artemis plan seems to be for nasa astronauts to launch from Earth in an Orion capsule on an SLS Moon Rocket. It will travel to orbit around the moon where the astronauts will meet up with their lander in lunar orbit. The lander will launch from Earth on a different booster, a Superheavy in this case. The plan is to eventually build a mini ISS style modular space station called Gateway in orbit around the Moon where this takes place. Then the lander will descend and land on the Moon.
I'm surprised frankly. This one was by far the riskiest of the three shortlisted lander options, but also had incomparably the most upside. Kudos to nasa for taking the risk.
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/as-ar...ns-on-moon
https://twitter.com/KathyLueders/status/...4258629640
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1383160370248896512
https://twitter.com/NASASpaceflight/stat...9010260999
Justification was that Starship has by far the most capacity and downmass. (Artemis proposes to land 2 astronauts on the Moon's surface. Starship could land 100.) SpaceX is also developing orbital refueling technology that all three contenders would eventually need. They liked that it's one stage that both descends to the Moon and launches back to lunar orbit. And in her remarks Kathy Lueders let slip another motivation too, that Starship promises to eventually open up Mars and the rest of the solar system. They obviously want to be part of it.
Something they didn't mention but no doubt was a big consideration is that SpaceX's bid was by far the lowest cost of the three contenders since SpaceX is footing the bill for most Starship development themselves and their HLS proposal is just a variant on that, not an entirely new vehicle. (And building out of stainless steel is far cheaper than high tech carbon fiber.)
SpaceX beat out the "national team" built around Blue's Blue Moon lander with participation by Lockheed Martin and northrop Grumman. This was the most expensive and least innovative alternative, kind of a redo of the Apollo landers. But safest with the established aerospace names.
And they beat out Dynetics which had a much better design than Blue's in my opinion. Less expensive too. I'm sorry to see them left in SpaceX's dust. Good company. I was hoping that nasa would go with two landers for dissimilar redundancy. SX and Dynetics combined would still cost less than the 'national team' lander.
But despite my sadness for Dynetics, I'm very pleased that nasa went with futuristic vision. Frankly, I didn't expect it.
Elon wants to see humanity all over the solar system Expanse style. So he wins big if he's the one who tempted nasa off their risk-averse behinds.