HLS Option B and the Sustaining Lunar Development Phase (Appendix P)

[yg1968]

No. It would be something like this:

Uncrewed mission:  HLS-Starship #1, used for Option A uncrewed test.
Artemis III: HLS-Starship #2, used for Option A crewed mission.
Artemis IV only goes to Gateway, so no lander for that mission.
Artemis V: HLS Starship #3, used for Option B crewed test
Uncrewed mission: App P uncrewed demo.
Artemis VI: App. P crewed demo.
Artemis VII: Recurring services (Sustaining Lunar Transport) operational mission which could be either the HLS-Starship or the App P lander.

Where is the source showing that Artemis IV is Gateway-only?  I've heard this elsewhere, but I can't seem to run it down.

As mentioned above, the link is the budget request presentation. But it was also mentioned at a NAC meeting before that:

https://spacenews.com/nasa-foresees-gap-in-lunar-landings-after-artemis-3/

[TheRadicalModerate]

Where is the source showing that Artemis IV is Gateway-only?  I've heard this elsewhere, but I can't seem to run it down.

You linked a source in the budget request. There's never been a landing co-manifested with the iHab delivery, due (as JayWee notes) to the complexity of setting up Gateway for human use.

Yeah, sure enough.  Full-blown bat-guano crazy, but you're right, and so was yg1968.

So, they're gonna take a module that costs about €350M, and put it on a $4.1B launcher?

Golly, maybe SpaceX could offer to ferry a crew from LEO to NRHO and back as a kind of shakedown cruise for the Option B HLS, and then launch the I-Hab on a Falcon Heavy.  That would take an F9/D2 ($250M), a fraction of the life of an Option B LSS ($250M?), 5 tankers (maybe $200M), and the FHE ($150M).

That's a savings of about $3.2B.

Huh.  An SLS/Orion for an assembly job, for an almost-useless space station.  Now I have to go find a wall to bang my head against.

[JayWee]

Where is the source showing that Artemis IV is Gateway-only?  I've heard this elsewhere, but I can't seem to run it down.

You linked a source in the budget request. There's never been a landing co-manifested with the iHab delivery, due (as JayWee notes) to the complexity of setting up Gateway for human use.

Yeah, sure enough.  Full-blown bat-guano crazy, but you're right, and so was yg1968.

So, they're gonna take a module that costs about €350M, and put it on a $4.1B launcher?

Golly, maybe SpaceX could offer to ferry a crew from LEO to NRHO and back as a kind of shakedown cruise for the Option B HLS, and then launch the I-Hab on a Falcon Heavy.  That would take an F9/D2 ($250M), a fraction of the life of an Option B LSS ($250M?), 5 tankers (maybe $200M), and the FHE ($150M).

That's a savings of about $3.2B.

Huh.  An SLS/Orion for an assembly job, for an almost-useless space station.  Now I have to go find a wall to bang my head against.

Actually, more than $3.2B. SLS wouldn't need block 1B and ML-2 then. iHAB is a justification for it.

[DanClemmensen]

Where is the source showing that Artemis IV is Gateway-only?  I've heard this elsewhere, but I can't seem to run it down.

You linked a source in the budget request. There's never been a landing co-manifested with the iHab delivery, due (as JayWee notes) to the complexity of setting up Gateway for human use.

Yeah, sure enough.  Full-blown bat-guano crazy, but you're right, and so was yg1968.

So, they're gonna take a module that costs about €350M, and put it on a $4.1B launcher?

Golly, maybe SpaceX could offer to ferry a crew from LEO to NRHO and back as a kind of shakedown cruise for the Option B HLS, and then launch the I-Hab on a Falcon Heavy.  That would take an F9/D2 ($250M), a fraction of the life of an Option B LSS ($250M?), 5 tankers (maybe $200M), and the FHE ($150M).

That's a savings of about $3.2B.

Huh.  An SLS/Orion for an assembly job, for an almost-useless space station.  Now I have to go find a wall to bang my head against.

Sorry, your alternative does not support the fundamental goal of the Artemis program. The fundamental goal is to justify the payments to the SLS/Orion producers and their employees.

If you want to fly an HLS mission without SLS/Orion, you will have to do it outside of the Artemis program.

[oldAtlas_Eguy]

Where is the source showing that Artemis IV is Gateway-only?  I've heard this elsewhere, but I can't seem to run it down.

You linked a source in the budget request. There's never been a landing co-manifested with the iHab delivery, due (as JayWee notes) to the complexity of setting up Gateway for human use.

Yeah, sure enough.  Full-blown bat-guano crazy, but you're right, and so was yg1968.

So, they're gonna take a module that costs about €350M, and put it on a $4.1B launcher?

Golly, maybe SpaceX could offer to ferry a crew from LEO to NRHO and back as a kind of shakedown cruise for the Option B HLS, and then launch the I-Hab on a Falcon Heavy.  That would take an F9/D2 ($250M), a fraction of the life of an Option B LSS ($250M?), 5 tankers (maybe $200M), and the FHE ($150M).

That's a savings of about $3.2B.

Huh.  An SLS/Orion for an assembly job, for an almost-useless space station.  Now I have to go find a wall to bang my head against.

Sorry, your alternative does not support the fundamental goal of the Artemis program. The fundamental goal is to justify the payments to the SLS/Orion producers and their employees.

If you want to fly an HLS mission without SLS/Orion, you will have to do it outside of the Artemis program.

Along with the iHab needing a dedicated Orion only Gateway mission. It also is schedule dependent on ML-2 and EUS. Which at this point it is a toss up as to what piece will push this mission into 2028: iHAB, ML-2, or EUS.  The engineering firm on contract to build the ML-2 say that the delivery due to the yearly budget forecast will be NET late 2027. EUS schedule is a big ? And the final item is that this will be the first time a new set of GSE is used. The first time the EUS is used. These two items are a prescription for large launch schedule slips to iron out issues technical and procedural.

[yg1968]

Where is the source showing that Artemis IV is Gateway-only?  I've heard this elsewhere, but I can't seem to run it down.

You linked a source in the budget request. There's never been a landing co-manifested with the iHab delivery, due (as JayWee notes) to the complexity of setting up Gateway for human use.

Yeah, sure enough.  Full-blown bat-guano crazy, but you're right, and so was yg1968.

So, they're gonna take a module that costs about €350M, and put it on a $4.1B launcher?

Woods170 said that NASA is considering launching iHab on a commercial launcher. Hopefully that would free up Artemis IV to become a lunar surface mission.

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=54967.msg2398652#msg2398652

[yg1968]

Sorry, your alternative does not support the fundamental goal of the Artemis program. The fundamental goal is to justify the payments to the SLS/Orion producers and their employees.

If you want to fly an HLS mission without SLS/Orion, you will have to do it outside of the Artemis program.

That is not the goal of the Artemis program. Because of Congress, NASA has to use SLS and Orion for its own astronauts but private and international astronaut missions can use HLS without using SLS (e.g., by using crewed Starship). Part of the goal of Artemis is to build a lunar economy which includes building public private partnerships that will ensure that NASA isn't the only customer for HLS.

[yg1968]

Where is the source showing that Artemis IV is Gateway-only?  I've heard this elsewhere, but I can't seem to run it down.

You linked a source in the budget request. There's never been a landing co-manifested with the iHab delivery, due (as JayWee notes) to the complexity of setting up Gateway for human use.

Yeah, sure enough.  Full-blown bat-guano crazy, but you're right, and so was yg1968.

So, they're gonna take a module that costs about €350M, and put it on a $4.1B launcher?

Golly, maybe SpaceX could offer to ferry a crew from LEO to NRHO and back as a kind of shakedown cruise for the Option B HLS, and then launch the I-Hab on a Falcon Heavy.  That would take an F9/D2 ($250M), a fraction of the life of an Option B LSS ($250M?), 5 tankers (maybe $200M), and the FHE ($150M).

That's a savings of about $3.2B.

Huh.  An SLS/Orion for an assembly job, for an almost-useless space station.  Now I have to go find a wall to bang my head against.

Actually, more than $3.2B. SLS wouldn't need block 1B and ML-2 then. iHAB is a justification for it.

I don't think that is the justification for it. iCPS was always meant to be temporary until the EUS could be completed.

[TheRadicalModerate]

Actually, more than $3.2B. SLS wouldn't need block 1B and ML-2 then. iHAB is a justification for it.

The OIG's report that estimated $4.1B per SLS/Orion launch was scoped through Artemis IV, so it presumably has at least the marginal cost increases for the first Block 1B in there.  I'd guess that 80% of the EUS extra marginal costs--not amortized costs--would be for 3 more RL10's per EUS, and the manufacturing cost of the USA to replace the Block 1's OSA.

[TheRadicalModerate]

Sorry, your alternative does not support the fundamental goal of the Artemis program. The fundamental goal is to justify the payments to the SLS/Orion producers and their employees.

If you want to fly an HLS mission without SLS/Orion, you will have to do it outside of the Artemis program.

You're not wrong.  I merely put forth that plan to demonstrate just how ridiculous this situation is.

But complaining about this ultimately isn't helpful.  Because SLS/Orion is clearly unsustainable, due to both its cost and cadence issues, either NASA (and Congress) will find a way to transition Artemis to using CLVs almost exclusively, or Artemis will cease to exist.  And it's not just the Artemis brand that will fail; any chance of a NASA-supported sustainable lunar surface program will fail with it.

So the trick is to find a way for SLS/Orion to collapse in a controlled fashion, so that it doesn't take Artemis with it.  But sending a crew to the Moon for a flags-and-footprints mission in 2025/6, then not returning for (realistically) three years, seems doomed to discredit the program.

NASA seems to realize this, which is why this Artemis III.5 "cadence" mission is being bandied about.  That almost certainly is a surface mission, because it's on a Block 1 and can't co-manifest the I-Hab, and therefore doesn't soak up all of the crew time doing assembly.

I would think that SpaceX would be delighted with this, because it would move Option B forward, which in turn would give them the tanker launch and refueling cadence necessary to reduce risks enough for cislunar refueling to be used operationally, which in turn gives them all the tools to go public with an alternative architecture that blows SLS/Orion out of the water without killing Artemis.

Alternatively, if Artemis III.5 doesn't happen, or if Artemis IV doesn't become a lunar surface mission, then Option B gets put on an almost indefinite hold, and SpaceX then has to squabble with whatever rinky-dink SLD provider emerges about who gets to provide HLS services for Artemis V.  The result could be an almost 5 year gap between the Option A crew test on Artemis III and an Option B crew test on Artemis V or VI.

SpaceX isn't wired for that kind of a gap.  They'll plug it with a couple of private missions, if for no other reason than they need something on which to perfect refueling.  And, in doing so, they'll inflict an intolerable level of embarrassment on NASA and Congress.

So we have a looming crisis:  a set of events that renders a hitherto barely-tolerable situation intolerable.  Something will change.  I'm hoping for a change that makes SLS/Orion looks as silly as possible as soon as possible but not so soon that Congress throws up its hands and defunds all of Artemis.

An early Option B flight seems to be about as good as we can hope for.

[TheRadicalModerate]

Woods170 said that NASA is considering launching iHab on a commercial launcher. Hopefully that would free up Artemis IV to become a lunar surface mission.

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=54967.msg2398652#msg2398652

Yeah, it got re-sized to make sure it fit in something other than the Universal Stage Adapter.  Note that mass was never going to be a problem, because co-manifests can't be much more than about 11t, and even a Vulcan VC6 can put that in TLI.

I have to assume that the reason that Artemis IV doesn't do a lunar surface mission is simply that the labor required to install and commission I-Hab was extensive enough that there weren't enough crew hours to do both that and a surface mission.  Sending I-Hab via CLV can't solve that problem.

If that's right, then we need a friggin' non-surface Artemis mission.  I only hope that it's not the mission right after Artemis III, so SpaceX can move directly from the crewed Option A mission on to the Option B mission without having to wait a mission (or two, if the SLD winner jumps the line) before they can do their thing.

[sdsds]

[...] it is a toss up as to what piece will push this mission into 2028: iHAB, ML-2, or EUS.

Or something else entirely. There doesn't appear to be clear evidence the initial Gateway capability components (PPE and HALO) will have arrived at the destination orbit in 2028. Apparently those components and the co-manifest plan for launching them were the subject of a critical design review some months ago. Yet there doesn't appear to have been a statement from NASA that the CDR was completed with no outstanding issues. Reading between the lines: someone has a problem to solve there.

So an Artemis III.5 mission or even III.1 and III.2 seem plausible.

[su27k]

https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1586035181701328897

And Kirk Shireman of Lockheed Martin suggests that LM’s lunar lander architecture uses nuclear thermal propulsion. #VonBraun2022

[clongton]

Nuclear Thermal Propulsion!
Now we're getting somewhere! Yea!

[yg1968]

Some good news! NASA now plans to use the Option B HLS-Starship for Artemis IV (so it will no longer be a Gateway only mission). 

Will point out that the Artemis IV mission included a crew landing in the background display.

https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1586025536119197696

The chart includes a lunar landing on Artemis 4; NASA previously projected that mission to be Gateway-only. NASA’s Mark Kirasich said after the panel they are now planning to use that for SpaceX’s HLS Option B Starship lander mission.

[oldAtlas_Eguy]

With some info that A IV is to have a landing starts to suggest more questions than any answers given. What about iHAB? Is IHAB still co-manifested or is it commercial LV launched? What about ML-2? What about EUS? What about Gateway? What about use of an iCPS possibility? What about schedule? What about HLS P schedule? ...

The list is growing faster than it is being trimmed back.

[yg1968]

With some info that A IV is to have a landing starts to suggest more questions than any answers given. What about iHAB? Is IHAB still co-manifested or is it commercial LV launched? What about ML-2? What about EUS? What about Gateway? What about use of an iCPS possibility? What about schedule? What about HLS P schedule? ...

The list is growing faster than it is being trimmed back.

The image in the post above yours shows that iHab is still planned for Artemis IV. The Appendix P lander would be by January 2028 per the latest BAA (and therefore Artemis V). Artemis VI and beyond would be the HLS Sustaining Lunar Transport services phase. The fact that NASA is trying to accelerate ML-2 suggests that they are probably not going ahead with buying another iCPS.

Is EUS behind schedule? From what I recall Congress wants EUS to be ready by Artemis III (even if it is not going to be used for Artemis III).

[TheRadicalModerate]

Some good news! NASA now plans to use the Option B HLS-Starship for Artemis IV (so it will no longer be a Gateway only mission). 

It's always nice when the universe makes a modicum of sense.

With some info that A IV is to have a landing starts to suggest more questions than any answers given. What about iHAB? Is IHAB still co-manifested or is it commercial LV launched? What about ML-2? What about EUS? What about Gateway? What about use of an iCPS possibility? What about schedule? What about HLS P schedule? ...

The list is growing faster than it is being trimmed back.

I have to believe that a nice, juicy co-manifest is a a piece of PR on which both MSFC and Boeing would insist.  I can't think of something other than I-Hab that would be good to go.

That said, two possibilities, both of them pure speculation:

1) I wonder if they've found a way to park or modestly secure I-Hab without doing the full commissioning on Arty IV, leaving some of the work for Arty V.  If HALO and PPE are operational, there would be a lifeboat if something went pear-shaped, even if I-Hab was just sitting there, unusable.  (No clue if there are consumables that need power or not.)

2) SpaceX may have briefed NASA on Option B, and NASA now believes that they have substantially more mission life than they were willing to assume with Option A.  If that's the case, then the surface crew could come back and help out without having to high-tail it back to TEI right away--and the Option B ECLSS could keep things in HALO going long enough to finish the commissioning.

Note that both of these options would require docking both the LSS and the Orion on HALO, because even if I-Hab isn't fully commissioned, it's gonna eat the other HALO axial port.  I suspect that requires commissioning one of the radial ports earlier than imagined.

[Zed_Noir]

<snip>
I have to believe that a nice, juicy co-manifest is a a piece of PR on which both MSFC and Boeing would insist.  I can't think of something other than I-Hab that would be good to go.

That said, two possibilities, both of them pure speculation:

1) I wonder if they've found a way to park or modestly secure I-Hab without doing the full commissioning on Arty IV, leaving some of the work for Arty V.  If HALO and PPE are operational, there would be a lifeboat if something went pear-shaped, even if I-Hab was just sitting there, unusable.  (No clue if there are consumables that need power or not.)

2) SpaceX may have briefed NASA on Option B, and NASA now believes that they have substantially more mission life than they were willing to assume with Option A.  If that's the case, then the surface crew could come back and help out without having to high-tail it back to TEI right away--and the Option B ECLSS could keep things in HALO going long enough to finish the commissioning.

Note that both of these options would require docking both the LSS and the Orion on HALO, because even if I-Hab isn't fully commissioned, it's gonna eat the other HALO axial port.  I suspect that requires commissioning one of the radial ports earlier than imagined.

Of course you could parked the Orion to a different LSS/Starship, presuming that SpaceX will maintain more than 2 LSS/Starhip in cislunar space.

Will be interesting if I-Hab will wait for SLS Block 1B with the EUS stage. Or take a earlier ride with commercial heavy lift.

[AmigaClone]

<snip>
I have to believe that a nice, juicy co-manifest is a a piece of PR on which both MSFC and Boeing would insist.  I can't think of something other than I-Hab that would be good to go.

That said, two possibilities, both of them pure speculation:

1) I wonder if they've found a way to park or modestly secure I-Hab without doing the full commissioning on Arty IV, leaving some of the work for Arty V.  If HALO and PPE are operational, there would be a lifeboat if something went pear-shaped, even if I-Hab was just sitting there, unusable.  (No clue if there are consumables that need power or not.)

2) SpaceX may have briefed NASA on Option B, and NASA now believes that they have substantially more mission life than they were willing to assume with Option A.  If that's the case, then the surface crew could come back and help out without having to high-tail it back to TEI right away--and the Option B ECLSS could keep things in HALO going long enough to finish the commissioning.

Note that both of these options would require docking both the LSS and the Orion on HALO, because even if I-Hab isn't fully commissioned, it's gonna eat the other HALO axial port.  I suspect that requires commissioning one of the radial ports earlier than imagined.

Of course you could parked the Orion to a different LSS/Starship, presuming that SpaceX will maintain more than 2 LSS/Starhip in cislunar space.

Will be interesting if I-Hab will wait for SLS Block 1B with the EUS stage. Or take a earlier ride with commercial heavy lift.

That of course assumes that I-Hab will be ready by the time SLS Block 1B is ready for it's payload.