The story broke last May that NASA had selected three companies to begin initial development of lunar landing systems that will take
astronauts back to the surface of the Moon by 2024. The three companies got different payment amounts; Blue Origin and the "National Team" was awarded $579 million, Dynetics was awarded $259 million and SpaceX was the lowest of the three at $135 million. Those awards are for a period of 10 months.
Today's story, courtesy of Teslarati, is that all three companies have passed their first review, a Certification Baseline Review (CBR).
NASA’s acceptance criteria for CBR documentation is about as general as the space agency gets, requiring providers to demonstrate at least a basic level of maturity and expertise. Like the name suggests, it sets a baseline from which NASA and SpaceX, Dynetics, and Blue Origin’s National Team will hone in on challenges and concerns specific to each system. SpaceX’s proposal is almost certainly unique, however, given that the company is the only one anywhere close to performing actual flight tests of a (relatively) similar system.
The post and CBR leads one to believe there's nothing here but paper. A month ago, Blue Origin delivered a full-scale, engineering mock-up of their lander to NASA for feedback on control positions and how the astronauts like the inside layout of the lander. Dynetics followed up by delivering their own full-sized, mock-up lander on September 15th. It's intended for the same purpose: gather feedback on how the end users like the control layouts. I haven't heard about SpaceX delivering a similar mock-up; my guess is the instrumentation is going to look like the Crew Dragon that NASA knows. SpaceX proposed a derivative of the Starship design, which can be seen at any time.
Dynetics' lander concept is quite different from Blue Origin's. Dynetic's concept is, to borrow the term, landscape mode, while Blue Origin's is portrait mode. I put together this graphic last May to show the three landers being developed.
Left to right, Blue Origin, Dynetics, and SpaceX. If you can envision the Dynetics lander without the massive solar panels, it's squat and wide.
Should be interesting to watch how this plays out. Thanks for posting all the space stuff. Since I retired I've had other things to play with, but it's still nice to see what's going on in the industry.
ReplyDeletedrjim, since you were with Sea Launch, do you think that SpaceX can build a sea going platform from which to launch and land the Starship/Super Heavy combination. Elon Musk has said that they want to get about 18 miles off shore to reduce the noise issue for doing multiple launches in a day.
DeleteI'm sure they could if they wanted to. I can't see them NOT having the resources and brains to do it. It would have to be larger than the Odyssey was to accommodate the bigger LV. I'm not a Maritime Design Engineer, but if they only want to go 18 miles off the coast, the ship could probably be built to a different standard than something rated to be "Ocean Going".
DeleteInteresting question. I hadn't heard anything like that, but then I don't follow the business very closely these days.
They came and toured our facilities three times that I know of. They were interested in using our Payload Processing Facility to "safe" and clean the Dragon capsules launched and recovered on the West coast, but nothing ever came of it.
Thanks for posting all the space stuff. Happy to do it.
DeleteI've always been a fan of space exploration, and living here means I get to go out in the yard and watch virtually every launch. There's only a handful of places on earth where that's possible. I don't have as many connections at contractors on the Cape as I used to (I don't understand what it is with everyone else getting older!) but have more resources online than there used to be.
Making space my beat was an obvious change.
demonstrate at least a basic level of maturity and expertise
ReplyDeleteWould that be, 1) to launch a solid rocket booster on a cold morning against engineering advice which you know but have suppressed, kill everyone aboard, and then lie about it? Or 2) to make the Muslim world feel good about their recent level of civilizational (non-)performance? Does #1 demonstrate expertise and #2 demonstrate maturity? Or the other way around?
I like the SpaceX rocket landed on the surface, that's how it's "supposed" to look!
ReplyDeleteIf you grew up watching sci fi movies like I did, there was never any question that a rocket landed on its tail fins. How they got to the surface was a bit less clear - ladder? elevator? And then it took off again.
DeleteI do believe that SpaceX has the needed level of maturity and expertise to build the envisioned lander. That there has been no acknowledgement of a mock-up, I would not be surprised if there isn't a partial flight deck built from plywood. The size of the Lunar Starship puts the other two to shame; it would be a virtual Moonbase when landed.
ReplyDelete