NASA's Artemis Program Updates and Discussion Thread 6

[TheRadicalModerate]

"Both HLS providers are able to compete", no 3rd lander. And of course Cantwell is Blue Origin's senator, so she only cares about Blue here. As far as I can see, no other senator asked about re-open Artemis III, I think the 3rd lander thing is DOA.

You might be parsing that a bit too finely.  But if they're really going to open Arty 3 up to be some kind of race between however many vendors, both Option A and SLD contracts are going to need to be rewritten to a common set of requirements.

In theory, I like the idea of a "first one to be ready to go gets Arty 3 and a bonus" contract, which also homogenizes the Option A and SLD requirements.  In practice, this sounds like an excellent way to be ready to go earlier--and then to mothball everything for a year, while the inevitable lawsuit wends its way through the system.

[thespacecow]

"Both HLS providers are able to compete", no 3rd lander. And of course Cantwell is Blue Origin's senator, so she only cares about Blue here. As far as I can see, no other senator asked about re-open Artemis III, I think the 3rd lander thing is DOA.

You might be parsing that a bit too finely.  But if they're really going to open Arty 3 up to be some kind of race between however many vendors, both Option A and SLD contracts are going to need to be rewritten to a common set of requirements.

In theory, I like the idea of a "first one to be ready to go gets Arty 3 and a bonus" contract, which also homogenizes the Option A and SLD requirements.  In practice, this sounds like an excellent way to be ready to go earlier--and then to mothball everything for a year, while the inevitable lawsuit wends its way through the system.

Lawsuits is exactly why it wouldn't be open to however many vendors, it'll just be rewrite of Option A and SLD contract, then the only one who may want to file a lawsuit is SpaceX, and there're things NASA can give SpaceX to avoid this.

[yg1968]

"Both HLS providers are able to compete", no 3rd lander. And of course Cantwell is Blue Origin's senator, so she only cares about Blue here. As far as I can see, no other senator asked about re-open Artemis III, I think the 3rd lander thing is DOA.

You might be parsing that a bit too finely.  But if they're really going to open Arty 3 up to be some kind of race between however many vendors, both Option A and SLD contracts are going to need to be rewritten to a common set of requirements.

In theory, I like the idea of a "first one to be ready to go gets Arty 3 and a bonus" contract, which also homogenizes the Option A and SLD requirements.  In practice, this sounds like an excellent way to be ready to go earlier--and then to mothball everything for a year, while the inevitable lawsuit wends its way through the system.

Why would there be a lawsuit? Appendix P and Option B have the same requirements. Option A has less strict requirements because it isn't a sustainable lander. I suppose that the requirements could be lossen for both Appendix P and Option B but I am not sure why SpaceX would complain about this.

Furthermore, I am not convinced that NASA will give Blue another HLS mission. Starting with Artemis VI, Isaacman wants to no longer use SLS. So I would expect missions after Artemis V to be from the Earth to the Moon (or Mars).

[TheRadicalModerate]

Why would there be a lawsuit? Appendix P and Option B have the same requirements. Option A has less strict requirements because it isn't a sustainable lander. I suppose that the requirements could be loossened for both Appendix P and Option B but I am not sure why SpaceX would complain about this.

You can bulletproof the requirements.  But in a close race, NASA is going to have to choose one system to go to flight readiness review.  When that happens, the loser is going to argue that NASA's judgment of who was really ready was wrong.

Maybe there's a way to write language into the contract to make that judgment unappealable, but I kinda doubt it.

Another possibility:  Put no extra money on the line at all;  winner only gets bragging rights.  Then any lawsuit revolving around reputational damage and/or hurt feelings will be pretty thin gruel.

Furthermore, I am not convinced that NASA will give Blue another HLS mission. Starting with Artemis VI, Isaacman wants to no longer use SLS. So I would expect missions after Artemis V to be from the Earth to the Moon (or Mars).

SLS/Orion could be replaced with another LOR-based system.  When we've looked at using a D2 for getting crews to/from LEO, one HLS to get them to NRHO or LLO and back, and one for the actual surface mission, that in fact replaces SLS/Orion without changing the fact that there's still an LOR architecture in place.  That has the nice property that you can mix and match cislunar crew transits with the existing HLS architecture(s).  Blue could also provide such a cislunar architecture.

That said, there's significant contract-smithing to do to make Option A a jump ball.  Whether SpaceX would be good sports about agreeing to tear up a perfectly binding contract without a big contract-breaker penalty is an interesting question.

I'm not particularly worried about this, because I think SpaceX is still well ahead of Blue.  But I can imagine a Blue architecture that doesn't need refueling, while I can't imagine a SpaceX architecture with that property.

[DanClemmensen]

That said, there's significant contract-smithing to do to make Option A a jump ball.  Whether SpaceX would be good sports about agreeing to tear up a perfectly binding contract without a big contract-breaker penalty is an interesting question.

It might be hard for SpaceX to be good sports. What goes around comes around. Bezos/BO sued SpaceX/NASA over the HLS award, and it forced about a six-month schedule slip. The grounds for that lawsuit were much flimsier than this theoretical breach of contract.

[TheRadicalModerate]

That said, there's significant contract-smithing to do to make Option A a jump ball.  Whether SpaceX would be good sports about agreeing to tear up a perfectly binding contract without a big contract-breaker penalty is an interesting question.

It might be hard for SpaceX to be good sports. What goes around comes around. Bezos/BO sued SpaceX/NASA over the HLS award, and it forced about a six-month schedule slip. The grounds for that lawsuit were much flimsier than this theoretical breach of contract.

I guess there's a possibility that NASA can simply schedule something ahead of SpaceX's crewed Option A flight, since committing to that is almost certainly at NASA's discretion.  That would put NASA on the hook for all the milestone-based payments other than the actual Arty 3 mission, including additional Option B work.

That would keep Options A and B completely intact, and would simply delay the Arty 3 payment to Arty 4.  SpaceX could argue bad faith, and they might win, but I don't think that SpaceX could obtain a stay against a Blue-provided Arty 3 mission if things got litigious.  (There's no irreparable harm if the money is merely delayed, and it's far from certain that SpaceX would prevail at trial.)

That said, all funds for Option A, Option B, and Blue's SLD contract are obligated already.  If NASA decides to create an Option A.1 for Blue, it's new, unappropriated money, and it would have to be appropriated for a system that NASA knew would be worthless if SpaceX beat Blue to the punch--which is still likely.


Best case scenario for NASA if they do this:  Blue charges NASA only for the manufacturing costs for two mutant BM1/CT hybrids (used as OTVs to haul the BM1.5 around) and the BM1.5.  Blue eats the DDT&E costs, and only charges NASA the operational costs (including 3 NG launches, possibly with expendable NGs) if they beat SpaceX.  I'll bet Blue would bid under $1B for the manufacturing, and no more than $500M for the operational stuff.

I'll bet Jeff would go for a deal like that, if it gave him a chance to stick it to Elon.  And they'd learn a lot building the one-off vehicles.

[thespacecow]

The way to avoid SpaceX suing is very simple, just approve SpaceX's own simplified architecture and fund that too. Elon is not afraid of competition, in fact I think he'd revel a definitive win over Bezos.

[thespacecow]

https://slate.com/technology/2025/12/moon-space-nasa-mars-life-trump-elon-musk.html

SpaceX is a nimble company, with enough engineering talent to pivot quickly. In an update posted online Oct. 30, the company said it is “formally assessing a simplified mission architecture and concept of operations that we believe will result in a faster return to the Moon while simultaneously improving crew safety.” NASA—famously not nimble—may decide to put the Orion capsule in a lower orbit around the moon, which would lower the number of Starship fuel tanker launches and make it easier for the astronauts to return to Orion in an emergency, according to Doug Loverro, a former NASA associate administrator for human exploration and operations and a co-author of the SpaceNews op-ed.

[woods170]

https://slate.com/technology/2025/12/moon-space-nasa-mars-life-trump-elon-musk.html

SpaceX is a nimble company, with enough engineering talent to pivot quickly. In an update posted online Oct. 30, the company said it is “formally assessing a simplified mission architecture and concept of operations that we believe will result in a faster return to the Moon while simultaneously improving crew safety.” NASA—famously not nimble—may decide to put the Orion capsule in a lower orbit around the moon, which would lower the number of Starship fuel tanker launches and make it easier for the astronauts to return to Orion in an emergency, according to Doug Loverro, a former NASA associate administrator for human exploration and operations and a co-author of the SpaceNews op-ed.

Man... that goes to show just how uninformed Doug Loverro is: Orion can get itself into a lower lunar orbit. Trouble is that it cannot get itself out of lower lunar orbit and thru TEI. It lacks the delta-V for it, courtesy of the small service module, which is heritage from the Constellation Program (where the Altair lunar lander would have handled LOI, leaving the propellont Orion for TEI).

Orion not being able to do both LOI into LLO and TEI is het very reason why the kludged NRHO exists, including the idiocy that is Lunar Gateway.

Then again... it shouldn't really surprise us that Doug Loverro was the one to come up with this non-viable solution. Doug's the guy who was kicked-out of NASA by Jim Bridenstine, after Doug violated NASA's procurement black-out regulations during the HLS selection process. That was Loverro doing a really stupid thing. And now Loverro is saying stupid things in addition to doing stupid things.

[hektor]

Yes but you can flip the argument the other way. If you can bring Orion to LLO (by any available TBD means) it has enough propellant to extract itself from LLO through a TEI and go back to Earth.

[woods170]

Yes but you can flip the argument the other way. If you can bring Orion to LLO (by any available TBD means) it has enough propellant to extract itself from LLO through a TEI and go back to Earth.

Sure. But right now that "means" doesn't exist. Orion is "married" to SLS. For both versions (Block 1 and Block 1B) Orion is on its own after TLI is completed.
That is, unless you co-manifest some sort of tug on Block 1B, but that would null-and-void the entire point of Block 1B: co-manifesting payloads that can be brought to NRHO by Orion (Orion as the tug, instead of the co-manifested "thing" being a tug for Orion).

[hektor]

Yes, but if it’s only a one-time solution—used before Gateway becomes available for Artemis III in 2028—why not? You could launch Artemis III on a Block IB with a co-manifested tug, preserve the last Block I for later, and that’s it. Objective achieved, Chinese programme overtaken.

The tug wouldn’t even need sophisticated avionics, since it never flies autonomously. It would remain attached either to the EUS or to Orion. And if you don’t require it to perform its own deorbit burn once in LLO, it could simply be a “dumb” structure: tanks, plumbing, batteries, engines, and minimal control electronics operating as a slave to Orion.

[yg1968]

Orion not being able to do both LOI into LLO and TEI is het very reason why the kludged NRHO exists, including the idiocy that is Lunar Gateway.

When the Trump Administration tried to cancel Gateway, you were complaining that the United States was being an unreliable partner to ESA by proposing its cancelation (see the link below) but now you are admitting that Gateway is useless... So which one is it?

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=62409.msg2678734#msg2678734

[pochimax]

Yes, but if it’s only a one-time solution—used before Gateway becomes available for Artemis III in 2028—why not? You could launch Artemis III on a Block IB with a co-manifested tug, preserve the last Block I for later, and that’s it. Objective achieved, Chinese programme overtaken.

The tug wouldn’t even need sophisticated avionics, since it never flies autonomously. It would remain attached either to the EUS or to Orion. And if you don’t require it to perform its own deorbit burn once in LLO, it could simply be a “dumb” structure: tanks, plumbing, batteries, engines, and minimal control electronics operating as a slave to Orion.

Interesting, I hadn't thought of that.

However, Orion would have to dock nose-first, and the tugboat would have to push in the opposite direction to the spacecraft's usual movement. The Universal Stage Adapter is made in one piece. See video of USA detachment at 0.20.

I don't know if it would be feasible. As you said in other post "Orion was not designed to withstand the loads in the opposite (eyeballs out) direction."

[pochimax]

Yes, but if it’s only a one-time solution—used before Gateway becomes available for Artemis III in 2028—why not? You could launch Artemis III on a Block IB with a co-manifested tug, preserve the last Block I for later, and that’s it. Objective achieved, Chinese programme overtaken.

There is an additional problem. To do what you're describing, one of the VAB's high bays (High Bay 1) would need to be enabled to install the ML-2 service platforms there without removing the existing ML-1 platforms in High Bay 3. (which is the current plan)

[TheRadicalModerate]

https://slate.com/technology/2025/12/moon-space-nasa-mars-life-trump-elon-musk.html

SpaceX is a nimble company, with enough engineering talent to pivot quickly. In an update posted online Oct. 30, the company said it is “formally assessing a simplified mission architecture and concept of operations that we believe will result in a faster return to the Moon while simultaneously improving crew safety.” NASA—famously not nimble—may decide to put the Orion capsule in a lower orbit around the moon, which would lower the number of Starship fuel tanker launches and make it easier for the astronauts to return to Orion in an emergency, according to Doug Loverro, a former NASA associate administrator for human exploration and operations and a co-author of the SpaceNews op-ed.

Man... that goes to show just how uninformed Doug Loverro is: Orion can get itself into a lower lunar orbit. Trouble is that it cannot get itself out of lower lunar orbit and thru TEI. It lacks the delta-V for it, courtesy of the small service module, which is heritage from the Constellation Program (where the Altair lunar lander would have handled LOI, leaving the propellont Orion for TEI).

Orion not being able to do both LOI into LLO and TEI is het very reason why the kludged NRHO exists, including the idiocy that is Lunar Gateway.

Then again... it shouldn't really surprise us that Doug Loverro was the one to come up with this non-viable solution. Doug's the guy who was kicked-out of NASA by Jim Bridenstine, after Doug violated NASA's procurement black-out regulations during the HLS selection process. That was Loverro doing a really stupid thing. And now Loverro is saying stupid things in addition to doing stupid things.

There are orbits more energetic than LLO but less energetic than NRHO, and Orion does have a little bit of extra prop to play with.

Back-of-napkin:  Orion, after separating from the ICPS/OSA/SCA complex, has a wet mass of 31.4t, of which 8.6t is prop.  The AJ-10/OMS has Isp=316s, so it has about 990m/s of delta-v budget. 

It takes 903m/s to get into and out of NRHO, so the HLS will need 47m/s less delta-v if the Orion goes as low as it can.¹

That's not nothing.  I got 50t less prop to LEO.  But it's a savings of 0 to 1 tankers, depending on how big a tanker load is.

____________
¹I did some highly questionable calculations and wound up with a polar eccentric orbit that's 100 x 4300km.  Note that the stability of that orbit over the 100 days that HLS has to stay there might easily wipe out any savings.

[TheRadicalModerate]

Yes, but if it’s only a one-time solution—used before Gateway becomes available for Artemis III in 2028—why not? You could launch Artemis III on a Block IB with a co-manifested tug, preserve the last Block I for later, and that’s it. Objective achieved, Chinese programme overtaken.

Artemis 3 is a Block 1, not a Block 1B.

[woods170]

Orion not being able to do both LOI into LLO and TEI is het very reason why the kludged NRHO exists, including the idiocy that is Lunar Gateway.

When the Trump Administration tried to cancel Gateway, you were complaining that the United States was being an unreliable partner to ESA by proposing its cancelation (see the link below) but now you are admitting that Gateway is useless... So which one is it?

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=62409.msg2678734#msg2678734

You're putting words in my mouth. And that's a bad habit. Please don't do that anymore.

With that said: I never admitted that Gateway is useless. I said that Gateway is an "idiocy". The two are NOT mutually exclusive. I'll explain why:

Gateway is IMO an "idiocy" because it is an inefficient "solution" for a problem that should have been fixed in 2010, when CxP was canceled. In the wake of that cancelation the Orion service module should have been upscaled to something that could handle both LOI and TEI. It was the logical thing to do given that a lunar lander doing LOI (like Altair was supposed to) never made any sense and ceased to exist even before CxP was canned.

However, history shows that Orion's service module didn't get upscaled. Instead of taking advantage of the situation to improve Orion, and thus its suitability for a range of possible missions, NASA basically sat on its @ss and did nothing. Which severely reduced the number of missions Orion could be repurposed for. Oh sure, NASA did try to find "suitable" missions for anemic Orion. Remember ARM? We all know how that went.

Anyway... courtesy of the Orion service module remaining anemic NASA was faced with a problem: how to do lunar surface missions with Orion? Well, they came up with a "brilliant" solution: repurpose the Deep Space Habitat as a mini space station in NRHO. So, in a sense, Lunar Gateway is "useful", in that it facilitates crewed missions to the lunar surface. (Starship negating the need for Lunar Gateway was still years off into the future when NASA was confronted with the problem) But despite that "usefulness" it remains a fact that Lunar Gateway was never actually necessary if NASA had had the gonads to take advantage of a fluid situation (in the wake of CxP cancelation).

So yeah, Lunar Gateway is IMO both an "idiocy" and useful at the same time.
But regardless of how I feel: if you (NASA) actively invites other countries to join the Lunar Gateway project, and you (NASA) then proceed to consider cancelation of that same project several years later, then it ain't all that surprising that your (NASA's) international partners come to view you as unreliable. Entirely justified because NASA has a bit of a history of pulling out of international cooperations, to the detriment of the international partners.

[TheRadicalModerate]

However, history shows that Orion's service module didn't get upscaled. Instead of taking advantage of the situation to improve Orion, and thus its suitability for a range of possible missions, NASA basically sat on its @ss and did nothing. Which severely reduced to number of missions Orion could be repurposed for. Oh sure, NASA did try to find "suitable" missions for anemic Orion. Remember ARM? We all know how that went.

Orion is just a victim of the original sin of SLS.  Once it was mandated to use RS-25s for the SLS core, which can't restart in microgravity, then Orion was condemned to be put into TLI by some kind of second stage.  Then they decided to turn the DCSS into the ICPS, and that precisely limited the mass that could be put into TLI.  So the ESM is the size it is because it can't be any bigger.

As with all properly-designed government boondoggles, the idiocy is apparent, but it's also distributed amongst the various parties so that no single party can be blamed.  Congress was just trying preserve the supply chain.  NASA didn't want to build a reasonable-sized second stage, because it made the schedule look bad, so SLS got stuck with DCSS.  Nobody wanted to add another RS-25 to the core, so it couldn't really be any bigger.  Nobody wanted to redesign the Orion crew module to be smaller.

I'm not disputing the idiocy.  I'm just pointing out that it was a cascade of idiots, not a single idiot.

But regardless of how I feel: if you (NASA) actively invites other countries to join the Lunar Gateway project, and you (NASA) then proceed to consider cancelation of that same project several years later, then it ain't all that surprising that your (NASA's) international partners come to view you as unreliable. Entirely justified because NASA has a bit of a history of pulling out of international cooperations, to the detriment of the international partners.

I would be very happy if the EU viewed the US as unreliable only because of our space program.

[yg1968]

With that said: I never admitted that Gateway is useless. I said that Gateway is an "idiocy". The two are NOT mutually exclusive. I'll explain why:

Gateway is IMO an "idiocy" because it is an inefficient "solution" for a problem that should have been fixed in 2010, when CxP was canceled. In the wake of that cancelation the Orion service module should have been upscaled to something that could handle both LOI and TEI. It was the logical thing to do given that a lunar lander doing LOI (like Altair was supposed to) never made any sense and ceased to exist even before CxP was canned.

However, history shows that Orion's service module didn't get upscaled. Instead of taking advantage of the situation to improve Orion, and thus its suitability for a range of possible missions, NASA basically sat on its @ss and did nothing. Which severely reduced to number of missions Orion could be repurposed for. Oh sure, NASA did try to find "suitable" missions for anemic Orion. Remember ARM? We all know how that went.

Anyway... courtesy of the Orion service module remaining anemic NASA was faced with a problem: how to do lunar surface missions with Orion? Well, they came up with a "brilliant" solution: repurpose the Deep Space Habitat as a mini space station in NRHO. So, in a sense, Lunar Gateway is "useful", in that it facilitates crewed missions to the lunar surface. (Starship negating the need for Lunar Gateway was still years off into the future when NASA was confronted with the problem) But despite that "usefulness" it remains a fact that Lunar Gateway was never actually necessary if NASA had had the gonads to take advantage of a fluid situation (in the wake of CxP cancelation).

So yeah, Lunar Gateway is IMO both an "idiocy" and useful at the same time.
But regardless of how I feel: if you (NASA) actively invites other countries to join the Lunar Gateway project, and you (NASA) then proceed to consider cancelation of that same project several years later, then it ain't all that surprising that your (NASA's) international partners come to view you as unreliable. Entirely justified because NASA has a bit of a history of pulling out of international cooperations, to the detriment of the international partners.

Thanks for your detailed response. Well, if you cancel Orion, Gateway becomes useless. Unfortunately, international partnerships can't be a reason to not cancel expensive useless programs. It seems that international partnerships are sometimes used to make programs hard to cancel (e.g., the service module for Orion) but that should never be the reason to enter into them. It's OK for countries to push back on some of these bad ideas. A country can say no to cooperating on a project that makes no sense, like Gateway.

The lack of usefulness of Gateway shows that it's time to rethink how international partnerships are done. An example of a much better approach is Italy's lunar surface habitat or JAXA's pressurized rover, those are a lot more useful and can be delivered to the Moon via lunar Starship or Blue Moon's lander. These programs show that international and commercial partnerships can be combined and be useful.