As part of its efforts to develop a sustained American presence on the lunar surface, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is planning to secure additional lunar landing missions from Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX). SpaceX won NASA’s moon landing contract for its Starship next-generation launch vehicle system last year, and at the time the space agency had only partly exercised its multi-billion dollar contract with the aerospace firm. In an announcement made today that was followed by a media teleconference, NASA revealed that it is now on track to exercise the second part of its SpaceX contract. This allows the agency to ask the company for more lunar missions, and it is part of a broader plan to develop a sustainable plan for lunar exploration.
SpaceX Will Augment Starship Lunar Lander Capabilities For NASA’s Artemis Lunar Missions
NASA’s award to SpaceX, made in April last year was embroiled in controversy soon after the announcement. While the space agency had initially planned to award multiple companies the chance to land astronauts on the Moon, budgetary constraints forced it to stick with the highest evaluated proposal, which belonged to SpaceX. Despite the award, work on the Human Landing System (HLS - NASA’s official term for the lander) was stalled until November last year when SpaceX’s rival Blue Origin decided to sue NASA for alleged impropriety. These claims were dismissed in court following which NASA and SpaceX officially commenced working on the program. NASA’s HLS contract covers three parts which are basic design, Option A and Option B. The first saw SpaceX, Blue Origin and Dynetics clear the agency’s requirements, following which the trio competed for the Option A reward. This reward saw SpaceX win NASA’s favor, and as a result, the company was offered $2.9 billion for two missions of its Starship lunar lander. The Option A award requires HLS Starship to conduct two missions. The first of these is a demonstration mission which according to NASA’s latest statements made moments back, is targetted for 2024. This will be an uncrewed mission intended to certify the system for carrying humans to the lunar surface. The second will mark the return of human presence to the Moon, and NASA aims for this to take place as soon as the second quarter of 2025. While the $2.9 billion award covers both Options A and B, the latter aims at upgrading the capabilities demonstrated by the vehicle used for the former. These are dubbed by NASA to enable a ‘sustained’ human lunar presence, and they seek to upgrade the first generation vehicle in several areas. Whether SpaceX’s decision to spread its price and milestone payments further down the timeline at the time of the Option A award will result in a higher price tag is uncertain, but appears to be unlikely. According to the contract requirements defined at the time of the solicitation in 2019, the sustainability segment covers nine segments of the HLS lander’s performance. These are the ability to access the lunar surface, carry more mass to and from the lunar space station, conduct longer daylight operations and extravehicular activities (EVA), have a higher reliability per mission and as a whole and feature the capability to autonomously dock with the lunar space station.
SpaceX’s Design Foresight Allows Company To Bag Another Moon Mission
NASA’s requirements for Option A did not require the landers to meet the sustainability criteria, but they did ask the participants to outline how they planned to meet these objectives. As part of her evaluation of SpaceX’s proposal, NASA’s former associate administrator for the human exploration and operations missions directorate Ms. Kathy Leuders had nothing but praise for the company. She outlined last year that SpaceX’s initial design already met some of the sustainability requirements and surpassed others. As Ms. Leuders had stated: While the Option A requirements did not require the lunar lander to be reusable, the Option B did, and as part of its solicitation, NASA had asked that: The Option B award includes an additional uncrewed demonstration mission for2025, with no details available on whether it will be followed by a crewed mission. Additionally, the space agency has not officially exercised Option B, but NASA is “planning on” doing so according to its program manager for the HLS manager Ms. Lisa Watson-Morgan. After being unable to choose multiple landers the first time around, NASA has also announced that it will open another contract for a second lander. This will involve companies other than SpaceX, and enable it to have more options at its disposal.
