Can SpaceX Starship, Blue Origin and Dynetics really go to the Moon?
In June 2020 SpaceX CEO, Elon Musk wrote some tweets about SpaceX plans to improve its
Starship Rocket. They are trying to figure out how to land Starship on the Moon
and in order to make it better suited to the lunar missions, SpaceX has plans to make some changes to
Starship’s rocket, these changes mainly focus on the Starship stability when landing in high winds.
So SpaceX won’t give up on trying to reach the Moon despite the fact that NASA
has selected the Blue Origin national team to return humans to the Moon,
in April 2020, upon identifying some risks in SpaceX’s Starship lunar lander proposal.
Curious to know more about this ferocious space race?
And whether SpaceX and Blue Origin can really go to the Moon? Keep Watching!!
To get back on track for the sustainable human exploration of the Moon and beyond,
NASA has started the Artemis program in 2017 with a cost of approximately 35 billion dollars.
The Artemis program is considered to be the twin sister of the Apollo space program. One of
the main objectives of the Artemis program is to return humans to the Moon where NASA will land the
first woman and the next man on the Moon by 2024 through that program and by using the increasingly
developing innovative technologies available to many international and commercial partners.
However, the objective is not the solitude purpose of landing humans on the Moon, but also to explore
more of the lunar surface than ever before. Assuming that everything will go as planned,
by the end of the decade, NASA will establish a sustainable exploration upon collaborating with
their international and commercial partners. Then they will send astronauts to Mars upon learning
everything they need to know on and around the Moon. If the program becomes a success,
we will better understand the universe and our home planet through numerous robotic and human
activities that are performed on the lunar surface and in orbit around the Moon. At least, scientists
will conduct their technological experiments and investigations from a new perspective,
which is the lunar surface and orbit in this case. This will eventually help them
understand the martian circumstances for sure. In order to be able to perform such activities,
NASA plans to build sustainable elements on the lunar surface and around the Moon, which
will allow robots and astronauts to explore the lunar environment and conduct their experiments.
NASA has built six main elements in the Artemis program which are:
1- The Exploration Ground Systems, which include all the on the ground structures that are required
to support Launch. In particular, NASA is updating all the launch facilities located at the Kennedy
Space Center in Florida, in order to support the Artemis missions to the Moon and beyond.
2- Space Launch System, which is the world’s most powerful rocket that will send humans and cargo to
the Moon and beyond. The Space Launch System is the agency’s first deep rocket that’s designed
to be flexible and evolvable since Saturn V. 3- Orion, which is the spacecraft specified to
the lunar missions, it will carry the Artemis crew to lunar orbit where they will transfer to
the Gateway or a human landing system. Then the crew will use it again to return home to Earth
safely since it has been designed and built to withstand the extreme heat and conditions
experienced upon reentry into the atmosphere. 4- Gateway, which is the lunar outpost in the
Moon orbit. It has been designed to support human and scientific exploration in deep space.
Built with the international and commercial NASA partners and the U.S. portion will be
designated the Neil A. Armstrong Lunar Outpost as the United States Congress has directed.
This Gateway is critical to the sustainability of lunar exploration and it will, for sure,
serve as a model for Mars future Missions. 5- Lunar Landers, which are human landing systems.
NASA has collaborated with American commercial space companies such as Blue Origin, Dynetics
and SpaceX in order to build these lunar landers to help land humans on the surface of the Moon.
These land systems will dock with the Orion spacecraft or the Gateway outpost
in lunar orbit and take the Artemis crew safely to the lunar surface and back to lunar orbit.
6- Artemis Generation Spacesuits, which are modern space suits that are compatible with
deep space exploration. Astronauts need highly specific and modern space suits in the harsh
environment of space, in order to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before and to
be able to conduct their planned experiments easily and efficiently. Astronauts will wear
the Orion crew survival system suit while NASA’s advanced exploration extravehicular mobility unity
or xEMU for short, will support Lunar surface expeditions, during launch and reentry.
So far, we’ve got a glimpse of the Artemis Space Program and how NASA is collaborating
with commercial partners including SpaceX and Blue Origin, it’s time to investigate their specific
roles, contracts and whether they are going to fully accomplish their responsibilities on time.
You may ask yourself why there is a space race between SpaceX,
Blue Origin and Dynetics? After all, NASA is collaborating with the three of them.
And to answer that very question, it’s worth noting that the three companies are simultaneously
building the same category of the Artemis space elements, which are the Human Landing Systems.
Moreover, the three partners will independently launch their own lunar landing systems on the
ULA Vulcan Launch System and the SpaceX Super Heavy Rocket. And here comes the competition!
Eventually, one company will be the first to successfully launch its landing system
and also one company will be the last. Which one will be the first? And which one will be
the last? Who will succeed to land the first woman on the Moon? Elon Musk? Jeff Bezos? or David King?
These are very important questions to bear in our minds.
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In April 2020, NASA awarded three firm-fixed price and milestone based contracts,
with a combined value of 967 million dollars for the 10 month base period,
to the three companies SpaceX, Blue Origin and Dynetics. Blue origin won a contract of
579 million dollars to become the prime contractor for the National Team including Lockheed Martin,
Northrop Grumman and Draper. Each member of the team will design and build a specific
element specialized for a certain role in the landing process. In particular,
Blue Origin will build and design the decent element powered by the BE-7 Cryogenic engines
that are in private development for more than three years and based on the blue moon lander.
Lockheed Martin will build the ascent element which includes the crew cabin that will have a
remarkable resemblance to the Orion Spacecraft. Northrop Grumman is developing the future
refueling element ,that is based on Cygnus, for more sustainable lander demonstration.
Draper will provide several systems regarding the guidance,
navigation and control, avionics and software development
that are relatively based on similar systems that Draper has developed for NASA.
NASA evaluation of the National team proposal regarding their technical rating and
management approach merits is that they have acceptable technical ratings and very good
management approach. The most important advantage of the National Team contract
is that they will simultaneously work on different landing elements which will be more
efficient because it will give them time to test all the elements before assembling them.
Dynetics won a contract of 253 million dollars, the contract includes more than 25 subcontractors
that are specialized in both the large elements and the small system level components of the
Dynetics human landing system or DHLS for short. Dynetics experience as a military and defence
contract integrator is highly demonstrated in that robust team with that large number of
subcontractors. Single element that is providing the ascent and decent capabilities along with
multiple propellant vehicles prepositioned to fuel the engines at some stages during the mission,
are considered to be the main features of the DHLS. Moreover, the crew cabin
in the DHLS design sits low to the lunar surface, which will enable short jumps for the crew members
along with the ease of entering or exiting and the flexible transportation of tools,
equipment and samples. There are some other advantages regarding the Dynetics design,
one of them is that the DHLS systems support both docking with the Orion spacecraft
and the Gateway lunar outpost, it will also get a fuel top-off before descending to the surface,
after completing the expedition, the entire vehicle will return for the crew transfer
back to Orion in the low lunar orbit. Additionally,
NASA evaluation of Dynetics proposal is Very good technical rating and Very good management rating.
SpaceX human lander is called StarShip, it’s a fully reusable launch and landing
system that’s specially designed for Moon, Mars and other destinations.
The StarShip launch and landing system is based on the company’s legacy that includes
tested Raptor engines and flight heritage of the Falcon and Dragon vehicles. There
are two airlocks for astronaut moonwalks included in the StarShip spacious cabin,
which gives the vehicle the capability to support up to four suited astronauts if needed. Moreover,
there are several Starships that serve in numerous and distinct purposes in enabling human landing
missions and each one of them is based on the common rendition and design of StarShip. The
tanker and the propellant storage unit are two StarShip-derived vehicles. The propellant storage
StarShip will be supplied by tanker starships upon parking in low Earth orbit where it
will launch to the storage unit in Earth orbit then fuel up and then continue to lunar orbit.
StarShip will launch from Earth via SpaceX’s Super Heavy rocket booster that’s also fully reusable
and powered by Raptor engines. In addition to all of this, Starship lander is capable of
transporting the crew between Orion spacecraft or the Gateway lunar outpost and the lunar surface.
Now you might be wondering why SpaceX won the least contract value of 135 million
dollars even after Dynetics?! Well, NASA has identified many
significant weaknesses in SpaceX's StarShip proposal. Which are:
The StarShip propulsion system is, according to NASA, notably complex
and comprises likewise complex individual subsystems that have yet to be developed,
tested and certified with very little schedule margin to accommodate delays.
The operations of the launch process and fueling are highly complex and rendezvous
that must succeed in extremely quick succession in order to successfully execute on its approach.
The past performance of SpaceX associated with Crew Dragon and Falcon Heavy development
experienced considerable schedule delays due to many technical issues. This issue influenced NASA
choice because one of the main objectives involves getting astronauts to the Moon fast to meet the
Trump administration's 2024 schedule goal. It’s also worth noting that SpaceX’s
Starship Meets or exceeds all of NASA’s threshold requirements. It
also supports a sustainable capability with reusable elements and robust capabilities
that will help realize the agency’s long-term goals for a sustainable and cost-effective
lunar surface transportation system. Moreover, Prioritizes early and numerous ground and flight
system demonstrations and Offers a “substantial corporate contribution” in funding from SpaceX.
Recall that the National team’s proposal, led by Blue Origin, meets most of NASA objectives
such that industry leading solutions are introduced by Each member of the team where:
The development of the descent element, mission engineering and operations,
safety and mission assurance, systems engineering and project management are all fulfilled by
Blue Origin since it’s the prime contractor. The development of the reusable Ascent element
vehicle along with the crewed flight operations and training are all fulfilled by Lockheed Martin.
The development of the transfer element vehicle associated with the delivery of
the landing system into low lunar orbit for the final descent is fulfilled by Northrop Grumman.
The leadership of the guidance system providing the flight avionics are fulfilled by Draper
Therefore, NASA objectives of sustainability and time management are pretty much fulfilled
by the National Team and Blue Origin, that’s why they won the 579 million dollar contract.
The ten month base period given by NASA to all the three commercial partners
will end in February 2021, so we need to wait and see what will happen.
Thanks For Watching Everyone!! In your opinion and based on the
information given by this video, Who will be the first to land on the Moon? Do you think that Elon
Musk will achieve this goal, despite the fact that he won the smallest contract? Or do you think he
won’t be able to finance his fancy, complex launch and propulsion operations? Let me know
in the comments below, be sure to subscribe, and I’ll see you next time on the channel!