SpaceX's next-generation Mars-colonizing Starship
vehicle could make its first extraterrestrial
touchdown just three short years.
SpaceX is eligible to propose using its Starship
vehicle to carry NASA robotic science payloads
to the lunar surface, the U.S. space agency
announced Monday 18th November, on missions
that could precede future Starship flights
with people on-board.
In its ongoing effort to send cargo — and
eventually people — to the lunar surface,
NASA announced five new partnerships with
commercial space companies that have designed
robotic landers that can take large payloads
to the Moon via the agency's Commercial Lunar
Payload Services (CLPS) program.
SpaceX proposes to do this work with Starship
and Super Heavy, the reusable spaceship-rocket
duo that the company is developing primarily
to help humanity become a multiplanet species.
And Starship could start putting NASA payloads
down on Earth's nearest neighbor quite soon,
if all goes according to plan.
“For Commercial Lunar Payload Services,
we offered the Starship and Super Heavy launch
capability,” said Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s
president and chief operating officer.
“That capability far exceeds the mass that
Commercial Lunar Payload Services was looking
for, but we think that brings pretty extraordinary
capability to NASA, both for the Commercial
Lunar Payload Services program and others.
Starship is capable of carrying 100 metric
tons to the moon's dusty gray surface on each
trip, Shotwell said.
NASA requires the Commercial Lunar Payload
Services providers to be capable of delivering
at least 22 pounds, or 10 kilograms, of payload
mass to the moon.
Shotwell said SpaceX, founded and led by billionaire
Elon Musk, aims to land a Starship on the
moon in 2022.
SpaceX is excited about the CLPS partnership
as well.
Starship was always designed to carry people,
but early uncrewed efforts such as communication-satellite
launches, CLPS flights and cargo missions
to the Martian surface will prove out the
vehicle, Shotwell said.
"CLPS is a great piece of what we want to
get done with Starship," she said, similar
to the way SpaceX developed a cargo variant
of the Dragon capsule before designing and
building an upgraded human-rated Dragon spacecraft.
“We’re leveraging NASA initially for cargo
and science, so I think it’s a nice stepping
stone and a nice path to getting comfortable
with the technology … so that it’s reliable
enough to put people on-board.”
In this video Engineering Today will discuss
SpaceX's Starship spacecraft which May Start
Flying Moon Missions in 2022.
NASA partners with SpaceX and more to send
large payloads to the Moon.
Let’s get into details.
The other four companies that joined the Commercial
Lunar Payload Services pool on this monday
are California-based Ceres Robotics and Tyvak
Nano-Satellite Systems incorporated.; Sierra
Nevada Corp. of Colorado; and Washington-based
Blue Origin.
They join Astrobotic, Deep Space Systems,
Draper, Firefly Aerospace, Intuitive Machines,
Lockheed Martin, Masten Space Systems, Moon
Express and Orbit Beyond, the nine companies
selected as Commercial Lunar Payload Services
providers last year.
The companies being added Monday— all vow
to transport much heavier payloads than what
the original nine CLPS companies say they
can carry.
The original nine companies needed to be able
to carry up to 22 pounds (10 kilograms) to
the lunar surface, but some of these new providers
claim they will eventually be able to carry
several tons to the Moon.
“We have a need and saw a need to bring
on some additional providers that had enhanced
lander capabilities,” Steve Clarke, deputy
associate administrator for exploration in
NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, said
during a press conference announcing the new
CLPS participants.
“This is based on our objectives — the
agency’s objectives — to get to the moon
as soon as possible, both from a scientific
standpoint and from a human exploration standpoint.”
Clarke said NASA received eight proposals
to join the roster of Commercial Lunar Payload
Services providers.
The agency picked five companies to “on-ramp”
to the CLPS program.
“All of them bring to the table different
strengths and different ideas, and that’s
what we want to bring as NASA continues to
lean forward and use commercial services to
explore the moon,” Clarke said.
“We want as many … diverse ideas as we
can on the table.
So we look forward to hearing reading and
assessing those ideas when we put out these
task orders.”
For Blue Origin, the company is bidding its
very public Blue Moon lander design, which
founder Jeff Bezos first unveiled in May.
Blue Origin’s Blue Moon cargo lander can
deliver nearly 8,000 pounds, or 3.6 metric
tons, of payload equipment to the lunar surface.
Brent Sherwood, Blue Origin’s senior vice
president of advanced development programs,
said this Monday that the Blue Moon lander
is designed to survive the two-week-long lunar
night and can launch on the company’s New
Glenn rocket.
Some of the companies are fairly ambitious
with their timelines, claiming they’ll be
able to send their spacecraft to the Moon
within the next few years.
Ceres Robotics is aiming to land by 2023,
while Sierra Nevada Corporation says it will
be ready by 2022.
John Roth, vice president of business development
at Sierra Nevada’s space systems division,
said the company will modify existing small
satellite platforms for lunar lander missions
to haul lighter payloads to the moon.
Technologies developed for Sierra Nevada’s
Dream Chaser space station cargo transporter
could be used to carry heavier equipment to
the lunar surface, Roth said.
The other companies’ initial lander designs
are capable of carrying smaller payload packages
to the moon.
Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems specializes in
building CubeSats and other small satellites,
and Ceres Robotics to develop vehicles to
explore the surfaces of the moon, Mars, asteroids
and other planetary bodies.
NASA started the Commercial Lunar Payload
Services program to purchase unpiloted rides
to the moon for the agency’s scientific
payloads aboard privately-owned spacecraft.
NASA views this Commercial Lunar Payload Services
as a key enabler of its Artemis program of
crewed lunar exploration, which aims to put
two astronauts, including the first woman,
on the moon by 2024 and establish a long-term
human presence there by 2028.
As the agency prepares to meet that challenge,
NASA wants to send tech to the Moon to study
the lunar environment more in-depth, as well
as demonstrate technologies that might be
used for future human missions.
Additionally, NASA wants to send a new rover
to the Moon called VIPER, which will travel
to the lunar south pole and scout for potential
water ice that might be lurking there.
Engineers are interested in using this water
ice as a resource for future human missions.
Commercial spacecraft will land hardware and
experiments — such as the VIPER — that
pave the way for these astronaut pioneers,
agency officials have stressed.
And buying a ride on private craft, rather
than developing and building its own landers,
will save the agency a great deal of money,
NASA officials said.
The 14 companies now part of the Commercial
Lunar Payload Services program are eligible
to compete for NASA contracts to ferry scientific
instruments to the moon.
Being chosen to be part of the CLPS program
doesn’t guarantee each company a NASA contract
to send their spacecraft to the Moon.
It simply means that NASA will consider using
these companies if and when it wants to send
cargo or scientific instruments to the lunar
surface.
NASA will put out calls for capabilities that
the agency wants, and the companies will bid
to have the opportunity to ferry NASA’s
cargo to the Moon.
“The services we are buying are buying,
or are procuring, are end-to-end,” Clarke
said.
“The companies that we award task orders
are responsible for securing a ride on a launch
vehicle, and of course, delivering our instruments
or payloads to the surface, and then actually
enabling us to operate those instruments or
payloads on the surface of the moon.”
“American aerospace companies of all sizes
are joining the Artemis program,” NASA Administrator
Jim Bridenstine said in a release.
“Expanding the group of companies who are
eligible to bid on sending payloads to the
moon’s surface drives innovation and reduces
costs to NASA and American taxpayers.
We anticipate opportunities to deliver a wide
range of science and technology payloads to
help make our vision for lunar exploration
a reality and advance our goal of sending
humans to explore Mars.”
In May, NASA selected three companies from
its original pool of participants — Astrobotic,
Intuitive Machines, and Orbit Beyond — to
send robotic landers to the Moon in the early
2020s, with each spacecraft carrying a variety
of payloads.
Only two of those companies are continuing
toward that goal now, as Orbit Beyond said
it would not be able to meet its late 2020
deadline.
None of these five companies have actually
built or launched their vehicles yet, so it’s
likely their timelines will be delayed, and
it’s still unclear exactly which rockets
will take these vehicles to space.
Presumably, SpaceX will launch its Starship
on its own future rocket, the Super Heavy,
while Blue Origin’s lander will fly on the
company’s future New Glenn rocket.
The details for the other cargo spacecraft
have not been finalized yet, and it’s still
unknown how NASA plans to use these companies
in the years ahead.
NASA is also looking to the private sector
to build the crewed Artemis lander.
The agency selected 11 companies this past
May to conduct studies and build prototypes,
and this pool had to submit detailed proposals
by Nov. 8.
NASA is expected to pick up to four finalists
early next year.
In October 2019, NASA unveiled the new spacesuits
to be worn by astronauts during the upcoming
moon missions.
The Exploration Extravehicular Mobility Unit,
or xEMU suit for short, is designed to be
less restrictive and allow far more movement
than previous spacesuit designs, and also
protect the astronauts from the extreme temperatures
that they’re expected to experience during
their lunar explorations.
The Super Heavy and Starship, both designed
for reuse, will be powered by SpaceX’s methane-fueled
Raptor rocket engines.
SpaceX intends to land the Super Heavy on
the ground similar to the way the company
lands Falcon rocket boosters.
The Starship will be similarly capable of
vertical landings on Earth, or on other planetary
surfaces.
SpaceX is building prototypes of the Starship
vehicle in Texas and Florida.
There are big SpaceX Starship milestones coming
in the near future as well.
