SpaceX & NASA
So let’s understand in detail,
NASA has selected a contractor to develop the next human landing system for the Moon, and the winner is SpaceX. Tory From Overlook Horizon Here on Friday, April 16, NASA decided to drop an unexpected bombshell on the space world by announcing the winner of the Human Landing System, or HLS contract.
That exciting prize goes to SpaceX and their lunar starship design. Now it was a bit unexpected, surprising how many in the aerospace community, that Starship was even included in the idea, given that their approach is different from everyone else’s. Both Blue Origin and Dynetics, which were competing for the contract, were proposing landers that looked closer to something like the Apollo lunar lander, and not a giant starship, of course, with the money factor in mind.
Was NASA’s budget more than SpaceX?
A lot of people thought SpaceX wasn’t being given real consideration. When you look at the dollar amount given last year to develop its proposals, $135 million was given to SpaceX. Dianetics got 253 million and Blue Origin got 579 million. Now NASA was being very careful in saying, that the dollar amount was not playing favorites.
They were indicative of the development work the provider has done over the past year, but that hasn’t stopped people from talking about it. And finally, though it seems, that low-cost dollar amount is one of the main factors NASA really likes, but I’ll get to that in just a minute. Now the Option A contract could have been awarded to one or more commercial partners, in fact, it could not be awarded to anyone, but apparently it was not.
It was expected that they would choose two. Having some redundancy is certainly beneficial, so if something happened to one provider, NASA could still continue its mission through another provider. That’s the main reason we have both the SpaceX Crew Dragon and someday Boeing Starliner to send astronauts to the International Space Station. However, NASA only awarded one contract, which was not really their initial priority.
How much did the SpaceX proposal cost?
In the scheduling document itself, Kathy Lueders also stated that they would prefer the two Option A contracts to promote redundancy along with competitive pricing and timelines. They determined, based on NASA’s budget allocation and proposed costs, that they would go with just one.
The cost of SpaceX’s proposal? Two billion, nine hundred forty one million, three hundred ninety-nine thousand, five hundred and fifty five dollars. It’s weirdly special. I don’t know why I don’t do government contracts, but they’re going to get two decimal nine billion dollars, but don’t forget about that extra five hundred and fifty five dollars. Somehow, NASA said SpaceX’s proposal was less expensive than anyone else’s.
Blue Origin was next highest by a wide margin, and Dianetics was even higher, by a wide margin. This is mainly because SpaceX has decided to self-fund and take on the financial risk for more than half of the development costs and testing activities. They’re already doing a lot with some of their own personal initiatives like the Starlink satellites, as well as private missions like the Dear Moon mission and Inspiration 4 mission, all of which can help raise additional funds and give them the opportunity to invest in themselves may allow.
Cost isn’t the only good thing about SpaceX’s Starship. This contract was evaluated on 3 terms. Technical, pricing and management in that order of importance. NASA noted, that SpaceX has exceeded its requirements in several areas. The amount of payload the Starship can carry is much more than what NASA needs, but don’t forget, it is only acting as a lander for NASA.
After all, what was the purpose of NASA to meet with SpaceX?
NASA still hopes to launch the crew on an SLS rocket with astronauts inside the Orion capsule, and then they will rendezvous with Starship in lunar orbit before landing on the Moon, but there is another benefit to Starship, that SpaceX says it can stay in lunar orbit. That’s 10 days longer than NASA needs to wait for the crew to arrive at 100 days.
NASA wants a good margin here, so that they can have a lander in lunar orbit, and then have some flexibility in their crew’s launch schedule. Now once on the surface, Starship proposes, to have pressurized and unpressurized cargo spaces, standalone accommodation capabilities, expanded capabilities for surface EVAs, and even 2 separate airlocks, but they Heeded some concerns.
The Starship proposal is too complicated. We can all probably guess by looking at recent test flights, but the new render shows some nice Falcon 9-looking landing legs, which is new. But one of the main complications is that, in order to reach the Moon, it would need to perform multiple in-space propellant transfers from a tanker starship while it is in Earth orbit, before it would go to the Moon.
Propellant transfer in space alone can be challenging and risky, but the upside here is that it all happened in Earth orbit, which is easier to do, and contingencies easier to manage, if it was done in lunar orbit. There was going, and SpaceX is going to demo, that capability first, but even if they live up to it, managing the many vehicles needed for a lunar mission can be a logistical challenge. NASA also noted, that once on the surface, the crew hatch is going to be 30 meters from the surface. This means, that they will need some sort of lift or something, and even if something breaks.
So what kind of back up plan would that be?
Blue Origin and Dynetics proposed vehicles that were apparently too small so they would just have a ladder or a few steps, but their proposals also had some issues. Blue Origin was the second choice, but their proposal had some concerns with the level of technical readiness in their design, and they also did something odd, asking for advanced payment before completing the work, which is something that happens automatically. disqualifies from receiving them.
Now NASA could have negotiated that with them, but given NASA’s budget constraints and SpaceX’s huge cost savings, they decided not to do so. Dianetics was choice number 3, and they had weight problems, specifically, the negative mass allocation of their lander – which essentially meant, that the lander was too heavy from the start, and they needed to find weight savings during development. will be required.
Easy Points:-
- This made NASA doubt whether they could implement their proposal.
- But really, it mostly came down to cost and budget.
- If NASA had a higher budget, they would probably try to include Blue Origin as another provider.
- This initial contract now entitles SpaceX to perform a demonstration landing without a crew and then a crewed landing.
- From there, he would need to win an Option B contract to proceed with long-term recurring missions.
- At that point, NASA should be able to bring in some other providers because, I think, it’s better to have some redundancy in the long run, to make sure there’s no interruption in our future Moon missions.
- Unfortunately, there are already some people who are upset with this decision, but I think it would be great if the new incoming NASA administrator could lobby for additional funding, and then include a second provider.
Wouldn’t that be awesome? So what do you guys think? Do you agree with this decision?
Have a good day!!