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Artemis Human Lunar Lander Contract Announced!!

#1
Yazata Offline
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


[Image: for_press_release.jpg]
[Image: for_press_release.jpg]

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#2
C C Offline
Wow. I guess the motto is get your act together with a visible spacecraft, and rockets that are launching things into orbit, rather than dragging around at the same pace as NASA itself.

SpaceX has yet to even land a Starship on Earth without it blowing up at some point. But at least that's still a dicey bird in the hand compared to two safe dreams in the bush.
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#3
Yazata Offline
Here's Kathy Leuders' Source Selection document that explains how they chose SpaceX

https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files...-final.pdf

Just from skimming it, I get the impression that nasa was impressed by Starship's huge capacity (as much as 100X the competition), large cargo bays and ability to transport large, heavy and bulky cargo useful in a lunar exploration effort. They like Starship's large pressurized area which can support crew for extended periods and they like its two huge airlocks. So Starship creates the opportunity to sustain a lunar presence and exploration effort after the first PR opportunity landing. (Land one of these and you essentially already have the beginnngs of a Moon-base.) They did express some concern about those airlocks being some 30 meters above the lunar surface necessitatating some kind of crane/elevator arrangement but judged that to be offset by the positives. They liked the many small lunar landing/ascent engines in a ring around the upper middle of the lunar Starship (placed there to avoid kicking up lots of lunar regolith) since they give Starship robust engine-out capability.

They expressed some concern about the complexity of the operation which will require several orbital refueling flights by tanker Starships which don't exist yet. SpaceX proposes that these be reusable, and reusability doesn't exist yet. But that being said, the others will require refueling too and their plans are even less distinct.

Another thing that nasa liked was that SpaceX is developing Starship as a commercial venture and has big plans for it. That means that it has a better chance of having strong company support down the line in coming years. The larger Starship project will be supported by multiple income streams and the lunar Starship will be part of a larger supporting ecosystem.

Kathy Leuders is well acquainted with SpaceX management from her previous job as head of the Commercial Crew Program and SpaceX was rated highest of all three contestants in management. Her old boss Bill Gerstenmeier (she now occupies his his old job as head of human spaceflight) now works for SpaceX. That wasn't mentioned but could only have increased the credibility of SpaceX's management in Washington's eyes.

Blue's proposal was rated adaquate for initial Moon landings, but it didn't have the size and capacity to support a sustained lunar presence. Blue has plans on the drawing board to address that, but nasa judged that it would require a complete redesign of their vehicle, requiring new engines, fuel tanks and so on. The fact that their offering has three distinct elements all manufactured by different companies and all launched separately and assembled in orbit, also adds technical and schedule risk.

Two management things that nasa didn't like about Blue's proposal were, first, that Blue wanted upfront payments before each project milestone was met, which directly violates the terms of the contract nasa was offering. (You get paid after delivering.) Others have pointed out that nasa could have asked them to rewrite that part of their proposal but apparently there was no need if nasa wasn't going to choose them anyway. And nasa didn't like what they say was Blue only offering them limited intellectual property licensing rights for the work that nasa paid for and commissioned. Again that's something that they probably could have been negotiated.

The elephant in the room that the Source Selection Document only touches upon is price. Congress didn't pass a large enough allocation to fully fund any of the alternatives. Dynetics' bid was reportedly the highest of the three, which surprises me since I thought that Blue's was. SpaceX was cheapest by a large margin. But that being said, nasa can't even afford SpaceX's proposal. So rumor is that there was some quiet negotiation and SpaceX agreed to accept less for meeting the early milestones with the understanding that they will receive more for later ones. Or something, it's largely rumors.

There's some suggestion that nasa wanted to award contracts to two of them for dissimilar redundancy, so that if one can't deliver as promised, the other is there. But again, no money.
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#5
C C Offline
(May 2, 2021 07:56 PM)Yazata Wrote: Predictably, Blue isn't happy about SpaceX winning the Human Landing System contract and has filed a formal 50 page appeal.

https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/musk-bez...2021-04-27


NASA has actually suspended the contract with SpaceX due to the protests. Who knows, before it's all over, market justice or "Woke for companies" may determine that Musk fills the placeholder for "privileged white male" in this context, due to his gloating on social media being perceived as bullying. Wink

https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/30/22412...in-protest
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#6
Yazata Offline
Blue's appeal of the Human Landing System contract to SpaceX has been rejected.

It's an open secret that nasa has been maintaining back-channel contact with SpaceX regarding Starship and HLS developments while the appeal wound its way through the bureaucracy. A surprisingly large number of nasa people have been taking their vacations at South Padre Island for example, which just happens to be about 5 miles from Starbase. But now it's legal for them to send official representatives and delegations.

https://www.gao.gov/press-release/statem...n=gaolegal
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#7
C C Offline
(Jul 30, 2021 08:58 PM)Yazata Wrote: This just in, Blue's appeal of the Human Landing System contract to SpaceX has been rejected.

It's an open secret that nasa has been maintaining back-channel contact with SpaceX regarding Starship and HLS developments while the appeal wound its way through the bureaucracy. A surprisingly large number of nasa people have been taking their vacations at South Padre Island for example, which just happens to be about 5 miles from Starbase. But now it's legal for them to send official representatives and delegations.

https://www.gao.gov/press-release/statem...n=gaolegal

As expected. In contrast, Musk reliably cares, is dependably involved in his enterprise without a conventional proxy whose layers of internal company bureaucracy are a drag on worker spirit and progress.

Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin blunders and oscillating personal/direct interest in it
https://www.scivillage.com/thread-10673-...l#pid44723

Belatedly desperate Bezos says he’ll give NASA billions of dollars if it’ll just give him a contract
https://www.scivillage.com/thread-10673-...l#pid44817
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