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SpaceX wins $2.9 billion contract to land humans on the moon


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In a surprising move, NASA has awarded $2.9 billion to SpaceX to develop the human landing system (HLS) for the Artemis program.  It's a surprise, because there were two other contenders: Dynetics Aerospace and Blue Origin, and both of their proposals were closer to how moon landings were accomplished in the 1960s.  SpaceX will develop a lunar only version of their Starship system under this contract.  Interestingly, the SpaceX's bid was apparently close to 1/2 the price of the competing bids, and the company even lowered their bid in order to meet NASA's budgetary constraints.  

 

Originally, NASA planned on awarding two contracts, but because Congress didn't fully fund the HLS program, there was only enough money to fund one winner, and even still it wasn't enough for SpaceX's original bid.  

 

Humans will still launch (and return) to Earth on NASA's own capsule and rocket, and once the capsule reaches lunar orbit, the astronauts will transfer to the Starship lander.  Upon completion of the lunar mission, the Starship will return to lunar orbit, and the astronauts will return to their capsule, which will then set a course back to Earth.  Lunar Starship will remain in orbit around the moon. 

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Wow. That's exciting and quite a bit of a surprise. I can only hope for the best.

 

You have to admit, a starship on the moon would be a pretty amazing sight. The scale of it alone will be incredible.

 

The video NASA released mentioned that the proposal includes "in space propellant transfer demonstration." I wonder if that means they plan to launch it, refuel in space, and then go to the moon?

 

 

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43 minutes ago, TwinIon said:

Wow. That's exciting and quite a bit of a surprise. I can only hope for the best.

 

You have to admit, a starship on the moon would be a pretty amazing sight. The scale of it alone will be incredible.

 

The video NASA released mentioned that the proposal includes "in space propellant transfer demonstration." I wonder if that means they plan to launch it, refuel in space, and then go to the moon?

 

 

 

That's exactly what it means - the payload to low earth orbit for Starship is around 150 metric tons, but there won't be enough fuel left in the starship tanks to perform the trans lunar injection burn.  So the idea would be to have multiple fuel transport starships rendezvous with the lunar starship and transfer their fuel into the lunar starship until it is topped off.  Once the lunar starship is full, it can then perform it's burn to get to the moon.  There will then be enough fuel left over to land on the moon and take off again.  As far as I can figure, it won't have enough fuel to return to low earth orbit at that point, so it would require a tanker starship to deliver fuel at the moon.  
 

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  • 3 months later...

Blue Origin and Dinetic's protest was shot down by the GAO today.  If Bezos wants a moon contract, they are going to have to lobby Congress to add additional funds for NASA to pay them. 

gao-gov-icon-800-mod.jpg
WWW.GAO.GOV

The following is a statement from Kenneth E. Patton, Managing Associate General Counsel for Procurement Law at GAO, regarding today’s decision...

 

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As I said in the Blue Origin thread, the Space X proposal was pretty much NASA's only choice given their constraints. They didn't get nearly as much money or time as they wanted, and Space X came in with the only flight proven vehicle and the most competitive price.

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booster and starship were successfully stacked for the first time this morning, really just a test fit since they have already separated them for the next phase of tests/prep work.

 

the booster and rocket are almost 400 feet tall not counting the launch stand 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Blue Origin is such a weird story.  A rich person's pet project to go to space and instead of setting it up to be a disruptor it get set up to act like an old space company without the old space history.  It took years to get a rocket to the edge of the atmosphere, they're late on BE-4 engines to go on ULA rockets.  They need to get Bezos before a committee so he can tell everyone why he should build lunar lander when he can't get to space

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  • 2 weeks later...

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