NASA is still on a big Moon 2024 push
and they want to get astronauts on the
surface of the Moon. They've awarded some new
contracts so let's talk about what that
means, coming up...
Hey guys Tory here from Overlook Horizon
if you're new to the channel we fly high
altitude weather balloon flights to the
edge of space and back and along the way
we talk about space, science and
technology so if that's something you're
interested in consider subscribing. On
April 30th 2020 NASA announced three big
contracts for their upcoming Moon 2024
lunar missions. It should be no
secret that NASA has a target date of
2024 for when they want to land
astronauts on the surface of the Moon
again and not only is 2024 still on the
table for NASA but it is the only option
that they're pushing for. That is for now.
The intent is to land astronauts again
on the surface of the Moon in 2024 and
set up sustainable habitats there by
2028. The three most recent contracts are
pretty noteworthy, because this is the
lunar lander portion for the vehicle
that will take astronauts down to the
surface of the Moon. Now, these contracts
provide initial development funding. They
haven't actually selected a vehicle that
will take astronauts to the surface yet
but this is still pretty good news for
these three award winners. Now, this set
of contracts will provide development
work over the next 10 months and awards
just under 1 billion dollars worth of
funding for that development. Those three
contracts are going to go to Blue Origin,
Dynetics and SpaceX. All three of these
companies will be launching their lunar
lander separately from crew and the crew
will meet up with the lunar lander in
lunar orbit. Now, Blue Origin is going to get
the lion's share of the contracts with
579 million dollars going to them
alongside their partner companies as
part of the National Team. The National
Team is a partnership of companies set
up by Blue Origin which also includes
Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman
and Draper. Now, as part of that contract
Blue Origin will be the prime contractor.
They'll be responsible for program
management, safety, engineering all that
kind of stuff and the other companies
will follow their lead. Blue Origin will
also be developing the descent element
for the lunar lander. As part of their
proposal Lockheed Martin will develop a
reusable ascent element
and lead crewed flight operations.
Northrop Grumman will develop the
transfer element and Draper will lead
descent guidance and provide flight
avionics. Dynetics is the second company
to be awarded a contract and they are
getting $253 million dollars. They're developing their
lunar lander alongside a partnership
with the Sierra Nevada Company. They also
have a bit of a unique approach to this
because they're ALPACA lander has a pair
of drop tanks that are launched
separately which allows the main Lander
to be reused. These tanks are depleted
and then jettisoned during descent. That
ALPACA Lander is expected to launch on
the United Launch Alliance Vulcan rocket
which is their up and coming new rocket
that they're developing. And lastly what
came as a surprise to many people in the
aerospace industry is SpaceX. SpaceX was
awarded 135
million dollars to further develop their
Starship platform. This is specifically
intended to be a lunar optimized
Starship which means that it won't have
any flaps on board and it's not going to
have any heat shielding for Earth
reentry but it will be reusable from
lunar orbit to the moon surface and back
again and of course there are many
people that are skeptical about the
Starship just because of the sheer scale
of it and the fact that everything is public
and we can see things like the
prototypes explode in a very public
fashion but even NASA Administrator Jim
Bridenstine has given kudos to SpaceX
for their ability to fail and fix.
He said that SpaceX is very good at
iterative testing and fixing as they're
developing their vehicles and really
it's just impossible to ignore the fact
that if Starship is successful it will
provide a very low-cost option to NASA
and really that low-cost would be huge
for NASA because that would help avoid
the problems of the Apollo program which
was cancelled because of the high cost.
Now, there is a big difference in the
dollar amounts that have been awarded to
each company but NASA is cautioning
people not to read too far into that.
It's not showing preferences or
favorites in any way. Rather, those dollar
amounts actually are reflective of what
the company both requested and the scope
of work that they're intending to
complete over the next ten months. Now
just like with the Commercial Crew
Program, NASA is intending to try to keep
multiple contractors onboard for
developing these lunar landers but
ultimately three contractors might be a
little bit too much for their budget so
they may have to pare down that list. So
over the course of the next 10 months
NASA will be watching and participating
in the development of these vehicles but
as this contract winds up they may be
forced to eliminate one of these
providers. One thing that's still a
little bit up in the air is NASA's Lunar
Gateway. Originally NASA had intended for
the Lunar Gateway to be ready by the
time Artemis 3 took astronauts to lunar
orbit but NASA has decided that they will
not go through the Gateway for Artemis 3
and instead they will meet up with one
of these landers in lunar orbit without
the Gateway. At this point though NASA is
still pushing hard for that Lunar
Gateway. They do still feel that the
Lunar Gateway is a key for a sustainable
presence at the moon. The Lunar Gateway
enables NASA to reach a whole host of
orbits around the moon so if they want
to go to the North Pole they can go
there. If they want to go to the South
Pole they can go there. If they want to
land somewhere around the equator they
can go there. The Gateway can open up a
lot of opportunities. Unfortunately
though with NASA's big push for landing
astronauts by 2024 some things just have
to get deferred to farther down the road.
One notable absence in all these
contract announcements was that Boeing
was left out of the mix. Now, Boeing did
submit a proposal for a lunar lander but
NASA ultimately decided not to provide
them funding for development and it
makes you wonder if this has anything to
do with the recent failures from the
Boeing Starliner. So whose design do you
like better and which do you think will
be ready by 2024? Any of them? All of
them? Let me know what you guys think in
the comments down below. Thanks again for
watching. We'll see you the next video.
[blooper] ... by Blue Origin which also.. wish husha.  wshhashaa
[blooper] ... SpaceX is very good at it
iterative it to reiterate Lee it to
rated Lee iterative Lee it to rated Lee
[blooper] ... at the moon.  at the moon.
[blooper]  bluuuubplfgs.  whoa.  what was that?
[blooper] come on get it together
