NASA to announce winner of lunar lander competition

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Peartree

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Within days, NASA is expected to select a winner from a roster of nine eligible companies to try and become the first commercial entity to accomplish a soft landing on the moon with a robotic spacecraft.

The privately-developed probe would be the vanguard in a series of unpiloted missions intended to deliver science instruments to the lunar surface and prepare for a human expedition as soon as 2024, the year by which the Trump administration has directed NASA to again land astronauts on the moon.

Following a model pioneered by NASA’s commercial cargo and crew contracts in support of the International Space Station, the space agency is turning to the private sector to ferry experiments, scientific instrumentation and other equipment to the lunar surface.

Steve Clarke, the deputy associate administrator for exploration in NASA’s science mission directorate, said Tuesday that agency officials are on track to award a contract, or task order, to industry for the first robotic lander mission by the end of May.

NASA selected nine companies in November to compete for up to $2.6 billion in contracts over the next decade to ferry scientific instruments and tech demo payloads to the moon aboard commercial robotic landers.

So NASA has a competition with the intention to design, build, and launch and soft land science experiments on the moon. The ultimate plan is to use these experiments to build toward a manned landing in 2024. Their stated intent is to launch these experiments twice per year, every year, between now and 2028 but it will be the responsibility of the winners to contract with a launch provider to do so.

But the thing that puzzles me, is that if we're launching rockets to the moon twice a year from now until 2024, why will we need a "new" moon rocket (SLS) in 2024? And, if we're still flying payloads and landers to the moon twice a year between 2024 and 2028, why do we need a new moon rocket that only flies once every 18 to 24 months? With all that capability in place, and in regular use, will NASA *need* SLS at all?

https://spaceflightnow.com/2019/05/21/nasa-to-soon-announce-first-commercial-lunar-lander-mission/
 
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So NASA has a competition with the intention to design, build, and launch and soft land science experiments on the moon. The ultimate plan is to use these experiments to build toward a manned landing in 2024. Their stated intent is to launch these experiments twice per year, every year, between now and 2028 but it will be the responsibility of the winners to contract with a launch provider to do so.

But the thing that puzzles me, is that if we're launching rockets to the moon twice a year from now until 2024, why will we need a "new" moon rocket (SLS) in 2024? And, if we're still flying payloads and landers to the moon twice a year between 2024 and 2028, why do we need a new moon rocket that only flies once every 18 to 24 months? With all that capability in place, and in regular use, will NASA *need* SLS at all?

https://spaceflightnow.com/2019/05/21/nasa-to-soon-announce-first-commercial-lunar-lander-mission/

I think the difference is in the scale of the landers. The early ones might be the size of a Beresheet, which is small enough to rideshare on a Falcon 9. Hopefully, they would be developing toward larger ones that have greater capability and research potential. If you're setting up a habitat for a long-term manned station, you need something a lot bigger that you'd need SLS/multiple Falcon Heavies to fly.
 
I think the difference is in the scale of the landers. The early ones might be the size of a Beresheet, which is small enough to rideshare on a Falcon 9. Hopefully, they would be developing toward larger ones that have greater capability and research potential. If you're setting up a habitat for a long-term manned station, you need something a lot bigger that you'd need SLS/multiple Falcon Heavies to fly.

That makes sense if all of the intended science packages are small. It might be interesting to watch how big they eventually get.
 
I think the difference is in the scale of the landers. The early ones might be the size of a Beresheet, which is small enough to rideshare on a Falcon 9. Hopefully, they would be developing toward larger ones that have greater capability and research potential. If you're setting up a habitat for a long-term manned station, you need something a lot bigger that you'd need SLS/multiple Falcon Heavies to fly.
I was thinking this too. In addition to size, a big difference could be the amount of time the trips take. A human in a capsule needs to get there and back asap. Life support is heavy stuff, requiring lots of fuel and bigger rockets to handle it.

A small science experiment can take a month to get to the moon, stay there for however long it needs, and then take a month or two to get back. And it can do it with a craft that's smaller than anything a man could fit into.
 
I was thinking this too. In addition to size, a big difference could be the amount of time the trips take. A human in a capsule needs to get there and back asap. Life support is heavy stuff, requiring lots of fuel and bigger rockets to handle it.

A small science experiment can take a month to get to the moon, stay there for however long it needs, and then take a month or two to get back. And it can do it with a craft that's smaller than anything a man could fit into.

Exactly, and the same technology for developing unmanned lunar landers to land heavy equipment like rovers and water/ice processing plants can be used later for developing manned landers and support, if needed.
 
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