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

[DanClemmensen]

Lunar Surface Cargo white paper.

From the paper:

Despite the capabilities currently in development, a gap in cargo lander delivery has been identified between 500 kg and 12,000 kg, for which significant demand exists

This looks like small launcher-think all over again.  If payloads can be aggregated in Great Big Fairings with really nifty stowage/tie-down technology, then HDL Starship will slowly cannibalize the market as cadence goes up--just like they're doing to the small launch market.

NASA can reserve some of the market for the strongest of the weak entrants, but to do that, they'll have to standardize small payload integration procedures and attachments--which SpaceX will happily adopt and aggregate.

Much like the small-launcher-vs-Starship argument. If a fully-reusable large Lunar  cargo system becomes available, then it may become cheaper on a per-mission basis than any smaller system. If so, then no aggregation is needed for the big system to win.

However, by contrast to earth orbit, I suspect that almost any lunar surface destination will be attractive to an entire exploration suite, so aggregation will occur naturally.

[TheRadicalModerate]

The 500kg-12,000kg is HDL. Below 500kg is CLPS which is an existing capability. HDL is required to be able to carry a minimum of 12mt to 15mt. They were trying to make the point that HDL is an important capability to add. If your point is that CLPS should be discontinued, I can't say that I agree with it.

Not according to the attached.

[yg1968]

The 500kg-12,000kg is HDL. Below 500kg is CLPS which is an existing capability. HDL is required to be able to carry a minimum of 12mt to 15mt. They were trying to make the point that HDL is an important capability to add. If your point is that CLPS should be discontinued, I can't say that I agree with it.

Not according to the attached.

Thanks! Hmmm. Interesting and strange at the same time. It's true that HDL's reference missions were for the pressurized rover and the foundation surface habitat but I always assumed that it could be used for smaller cargo. Very odd.

[TheRadicalModerate]

Thanks! Hmmm. Interesting and strange at the same time. It's true that HDL's reference missions were for the pressurized rover and the foundation surface habitats but I always assumed that it could be used for smaller cargo. Very odd.

I wouldn't be surprised to find a pretty sharp knee in the specific cost curve for the two HDL systems.  They can obviously land tiny payloads, but there are likely to be cheaper ways to do it without lugging all that dry mass around.

As usual, if Starship comes in with the price and performance that was previously advertised, it really won't matter.  And if cadence comes up, Starship's ability to aggregate payloads will wipe away everybody who isn't willing to match its scale.

[Paul451]

Sure, use Dragon Cargo, and in fact you could park the Starship HLS in LEO and then send a number of Dragon Cargo vehicles up to gradually unload the lunar samples.

IIRC, Dragon has a cargo downmass of around 2.5 tonnes. I'm genuinely curious how much lunar samples you see each Artemis mission collecting?

[clongton]

SpaceX is still early in Starship development, but as they figure out how to land from low Earth orbit (LEO), they will then want to then learn how to land from beyond low Earth orbit (BLEO). All of that is part of the roadmap for the Mars versions of the Starship <snip>

That should be an easy solution for NASA to adopt, but first Congress must fund it.

So many keep forgetting that SpaceX is going to Mars - with or without NASA. If SpaceX never gets another dime from Congress, SpaceX will still go to Mars on its own - without NASA. Perfecting EDL on Earth's surface from an interplanetary return will still happen without congressional funding. SpaceX will self fund it - because it can.

[DanClemmensen]

Sure, use Dragon Cargo, and in fact you could park the Starship HLS in LEO and then send a number of Dragon Cargo vehicles up to gradually unload the lunar samples.

IIRC, Dragon has a cargo downmass of around 2.5 tonnes. I'm genuinely curious how much lunar samples you see each Artemis mission collecting?

Even though I advocate using Dragon and an HLS-as-transporter in the short term, it does not fix the other problem: all return samples and material must fit through the IDSS ports. This is of course also true of Orion return. The Artemis program does not specify the return of bulky items even in the distant future. This capability would require an EDL-capable spacecraft with a large cargo door. HLS can lift a bulky cargo from the Moon, and HLS-as-transporter could bring it back to LEO, but there is no way yet to bring it down.

I cannot think of a credible need for this capability,

[yg1968]

Sure, use Dragon Cargo, and in fact you could park the Starship HLS in LEO and then send a number of Dragon Cargo vehicles up to gradually unload the lunar samples.

IIRC, Dragon has a cargo downmass of around 2.5 tonnes. I'm genuinely curious how much lunar samples you see each Artemis mission collecting?

As I said above, Jim Free said that the NASA requirements for samples is well over 1 mt.
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=51452.msg2470743#msg2470743

[Greg Hullender]

So many keep forgetting that SpaceX is going to Mars - with or without NASA.

I don't think it's an issue of people forgetting anything. It's just that most people don't believe it. I certainly don't. I think it's a sort of wishful thinking from people who really, really want to believe that somehow space travel can justify itself economically and that it'll be possible to build some sort of Libertarian/Anarchist utopia in space. I've been skeptical of this idea for at least the past 50 years, and nothing I've seen lately makes me think otherwise.

Without NASA, without American taxpayer dollars, SpaceX isn't even getting to the moon--much less Mars. Accordingly, it's critical for them to keep NASA happy. They seem to understand that quite well. Everyone else should too.

[TheRadicalModerate]

Without NASA, without American taxpayer dollars, SpaceX isn't even getting to the moon--much less Mars. Accordingly, it's critical for them to keep NASA happy. They seem to understand that quite well. Everyone else should too.

NASA is conservative.  Until they know that Starship HLS is going to work, they're not going to start writing requirements that only it can do. Given that Option A's schedule just got moved to early 2028, that seems realistic.

Until SpaceX demonstrates performance consistent with 30t+ payloads, NASA's not going to write any task orders for them, and they're not going to re-plan things to assume a higher Artemis cadence--especially until SLS has shuffled off this mortal coil.  But once the performance is demonstrated (which Option A should do), people will start using the capability.

The result is that NASA's about 3-5 years behind the state of the art for transport services.  That sounds perfectly reasonable.

As for Mars, it's not completely orthogonal to Artemis, but it's pretty close.  Artemis will get to draft off of SpaceX's Mars development a bit, and Mars will get to draft off of Artemis's development, but by and large, they have nothing to do with one another.

[yg1968]

Without NASA, without American taxpayer dollars, SpaceX isn't even getting to the moon--much less Mars. Accordingly, it's critical for them to keep NASA happy. They seem to understand that quite well. Everyone else should too.

Given that Option A's schedule just got moved to early 2028, that seems realistic.

The Artemis III date hasn't actually changed, it's still September 2026 (for now at least).

In a statement to SpaceNews, NASA confirmed the dates mentioned in the GAO report, while reiterating that Artemis 3 remains on schedule for September 2026.

[yg1968]

So many keep forgetting that SpaceX is going to Mars - with or without NASA.

I don't think it's an issue of people forgetting anything. It's just that most people don't believe it. I certainly don't. I think it's a sort of wishful thinking from people who really, really want to believe that somehow space travel can justify itself economically and that it'll be possible to build some sort of Libertarian/Anarchist utopia in space. I've been skeptical of this idea for at least the past 50 years, and nothing I've seen lately makes me think otherwise.

Without NASA, without American taxpayer dollars, SpaceX isn't even getting to the moon--much less Mars. Accordingly, it's critical for them to keep NASA happy. They seem to understand that quite well. Everyone else should too.

I have no doubt that SpaceX will be sending some ships to Mars every 2 years on its own. However, I expect NASA to take advantage of SpaceX's capability for Mars at some point. The sooner NASA does this, the better in my opinion (e.g., for a sample return mission).

[VSECOTSPE]

I don't think it's an issue of people forgetting anything. It's just that most people don't believe it. I certainly don't. I think it's a sort of wishful thinking from people who really, really want to believe that somehow space travel can justify itself economically and that it'll be possible to build some sort of Libertarian/Anarchist utopia in space. I've been skeptical of this idea for at least the past 50 years, and nothing I've seen lately makes me think otherwise.

Without NASA, without American taxpayer dollars, SpaceX isn't even getting to the moon--much less Mars.

Agree that Starship isn’t/won’t be funded from/for any lunar or Martian base tycoon fantasy.

Disagree that Starship needs NASA funding.  Starship is a critical element in the multi-hundred billion dollar StarLink enterprise.  Musk could get run over by a bus tomorrow and NASA could cancel all its contracts with SpaceX, and Starship would still get built to launch and service StarLink.  There’s just too much money to be made from Starlink to turn off Starship:

The report, discussed by Quilty Space analysts on a webinar May 9, forecasts Starlink is on track to generate a staggering $6.6 billion in revenue for 2024...

“We’re projecting a revenue jump from $1.4 billion in 2022 to $6.6 billion in 2024.”

To put that in perspective, the combined revenue of the two largest geostationary satellite operators, SES and Intelsat, which recently announced a merger, is around $4.1 billion...

Quilty Space estimates Starlink’s EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes,depreciation, and amortization) to reach $3.8 billion in 2024, a significant leap from negative $128 million in 2022.

https://spacenews.com/starlink-soars-spacexs-satellite-internet-surprises-analysts-with-6-6-billion-revenue-projection/

Citing people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg reported that SpaceX will sell insider shares at $112 apiece, valuing the company at close to $210 billion...

... with $9 billion in revenue last year and Starlink and Starship poised to grow the company further, there is potential for SpaceX to become a $1 trillion to $2 trillion company

https://www.morningstar.com/news/marketwatch/20240627351/spacex-tender-offer-would-value-elon-musks-space-company-at-210-billion-report-says

These numbers dwarf the few billion dollars NASA has thrown at Starship for HLS.  StarLink revenue alone will almost certainly outstrip the entire Artemis budget next year and maybe earnings, too.  To borrow RadMod’s metaphor from slightly upthread, Artemis is drafting off StarLink and most likely so will any NASA use of Starship for Mars.

Accordingly, it's critical for them to keep NASA happy. They seem to understand that quite well. Everyone else should too.

Not for funding anymore, but definitely for continued access to narrow but deep expertise in a number of domains.  That’s where SpaceX still can’t do without NASA.

The Artemis III date hasn't actually changed, it's still September 2026 (for now at least).

Program doesn’t hit a confidence level of 70% until 2028.  After human errors that can’t be captured by such analyses are included, the real date is almost certainly somewhere in 2029-2030+.

The confirmation review, which took place in December 2023, set a schedule baseline of February 2028 for that project at a 70% joint confidence level. That means there is a 70% chance that Starship will be ready for a lunar landing — a milestone formally known as lunar orbit checkout review — by February 2028.

https://spacenews.com/nasa-assessment-suggests-potential-additional-delays-for-artemis-3-lunar-lander/

2026 reflects the fact that the NASA bureaucracy hasn’t had an opportunity to get together and update the Artemis schedule to match the reality of their program.  It doesn’t reflect the actual state of the program.

[Coastal Ron]

Without NASA, without American taxpayer dollars, SpaceX isn't even getting to the moon--much less Mars. Accordingly, it's critical for them to keep NASA happy. They seem to understand that quite well. Everyone else should too.

NASA is conservative.  Until they know that Starship HLS is going to work, they're not going to start writing requirements that only it can do.

NASA was not "conservative" when it awarded SpaceX the (then) only HLS Option B contract. So yes, NASA will take risks, and yes, NASA will sole source critical systems.

However NASA was forced to take these risks because of the politically mandated 2024 human landing date. NASA knew it could not build its own lunar lander and be ready until at least the 2030's (just look at the history of Orion MPCV or the SLS). So NASA did the only thing it could do, and that was go out to the private sector for private sector solutions.

But luckily for NASA, and the Trump Administration, SpaceX was already funding the Starship development program, so NASA was able to "ride the coat tails" of what SpaceX had already been doing, otherwise a human landing date this decade would have been highly unlikely.

Until SpaceX demonstrates performance consistent with 30t+ payloads, NASA's not going to write any task orders for them...

No, I disagree. The primary focus of the current Artemis mission, per V.P. Pence when they announced the program, is:

“To be clear: the first woman and the next man on the moon will both be American astronauts, launched by American rockets from American soil.”

Nothing about the science, all about the people (and the optics people provide).

It will require Congress being interested in the science return before NASA will start being serious about lunar material return alternatives, and they won't hesitate to contract with private companies that have yet to build their systems.

[yg1968]

2026 reflects the fact that the NASA bureaucracy hasn’t had an opportunity to get together and update the Artemis schedule to match the reality of their program.  It doesn’t reflect the actual state of the program.

SpaceX is in charge of meeting its milestones, not some NASA risk-estimate review of HLS-Starship. I wouldn't be surprised if there is a delay to Artemis III as Starship seems to be taking more time than expected but HLS isn't the only issue. My guess is that the spacesuit and even Orion will also need more time and that an official delay to Artemis III won't be announced until the FY26 budget is announced in the spring of 2025 or a few weeks before that time and I expect the delay to be another year again to September 2027. The one year delay to September 2026 was just announced earlier this year (after the HLS-Starship risk-estimate review had already been completed), so they won't be announcing a new delay in the same year. 

[DanClemmensen]

2026 reflects the fact that the NASA bureaucracy hasn’t had an opportunity to get together and update the Artemis schedule to match the reality of their program.  It doesn’t reflect the actual state of the program.

SpaceX is in charge of meeting its milestones, not some NASA risk-estimate review of HLS-Starship. I wouldn't be surprised if there is a delay to Artemis III as Starship seems to be taking more time than expected but HLS isn't the only issue. My guess is that the spacesuit and even Orion will also need more time and that an official delay to Artemis III won't be announced until the FY26 budget is announced in the spring of 2025 or a few weeks before that time and I expect the delay to be another year again to September 2027. The one year delay to September 2026 was just announced earlier this year (after the HLS-Starship risk-estimate review had already been completed), so they won't be announcing a new delay in the same year.

Why are Artemis missions planned for September? September is the peak of Hurricane season.

[VSECOTSPE]

SpaceX is in charge of meeting its milestones, not some NASA risk-estimate review of HLS-Starship.

Yeah, and anyone who plays the lottery is in charge of what numbers they pick and how often they play.  That doesn’t mean they’re going to beat the odds.

JCLs are bottoms-up assessments of cost and schedule risks.  They’re not performed by a couple guys with a spreadsheet in a remote office.  SpaceX managers and personnel would have been deeply involved in this one.  A JCL is as accurate a tool as possible at NASA for understanding the likelihood that a program will exceed its cost, schedule, or both.  And even then, JCLs are still optimistic because humans are fallible and fail to perceive all risks, meaning that the actual 70% confidence level on this one is not in 2028 but later.

A JCL isn’t about whether SpaceX can beat historical sector performance, like when F9 came in at ~$300 million vice the $1.1 billion that parametric cost estimates based on history spat out.  A JCL is about whether this particular project will meet its cost and schedule based on the known risks.  Lunar Starship can (and probably will) blow prior cost and schedule estimates for lunar landers out of water and still be years late and billions over budget.  That’s what this JCL is telling NASA.  Leadership and management should listen.  Just based on Lunar Starship alone, they’re running a substantial risk that Artemis will not deliver during this Administration or the next one or before China’s putative landing prior to 2030. 

I wouldn't be surprised if there is a delay to Artemis III as Starship seems to be taking more time than expected but HLS isn't the only issue. My guess is that the spacesuit and even Orion will also need more time and that an official delay to Artemis III won't be announced until the FY26 budget is announced in the spring of 2025 or a few weeks before that time and I expect the delay to be another year again to September 2027.

Waiting until the last possible moment in each annual budget cycle to kick the can down the road another year isn’f going to change the reality reflected in this JCL.  Artemis has a strategic problem emerging.  Artemis needs to deal with it strategically.

This situation is the result a couple decades of blowing massive budget and schedule on Orion/SLS instead of building a lander in parallel with an affordable lunar crew transport system.  It’s not SpaceX’s fault.  But that doesn’t change this JCL or its implications for Artemis. 

More on JCLs here:

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20130012835

[Coastal Ron]

2026 reflects the fact that the NASA bureaucracy hasn’t had an opportunity to get together and update the Artemis schedule to match the reality of their program.  It doesn’t reflect the actual state of the program.

SpaceX is in charge of meeting its milestones, not some NASA risk-estimate review of HLS-Starship. I wouldn't be surprised if there is a delay to Artemis III as Starship seems to be taking more time than expected...

And where have we seen that pattern with major NASA programs before? Oh, right, SLS, Orion, etc.

No knowledgeable person would have thought that SpaceX could have made the 2024 date after NASA awarded them the Starship HLS contract in 2021. And remember, NASA was still targeting 2024 back in 2021, so what does that tell you about NASA's ability to forecast complex schedules for SLS, Orion, spacesuits, etc.

I'll say it again, NASA would not even have a chance to return to the Moon this decade if SpaceX had not already been investing THEIR OWN MONEY in developing the Starship transportation system. NASA had no other choice but to contract with them for the first round of HLS Option B, but that didn't mean that SpaceX could make the 2024 date, and obviously they can't. But no one else could have either.

And now that NASA has admitted that many other elements of the Artemis III mission won't be ready on time either, shouldn't that tell you something about NASA's ability to accurately forecast anything, at least publicly?

Heck, Axiom Space wasn't awarded their contract for the lunar spacesuits until September 2022. Do you see the pattern here? Not only was the original return-to-Moon goal pulled out of a political hat, but NASA has not had the ability to manage the Artemis program in an efficient manner.

So sure, blame SpaceX and Axiom Space for the Artemis III mission delay. But I think that would be misguided...

[Eric Hedman]

2026 reflects the fact that the NASA bureaucracy hasn’t had an opportunity to get together and update the Artemis schedule to match the reality of their program.  It doesn’t reflect the actual state of the program.

SpaceX is in charge of meeting its milestones, not some NASA risk-estimate review of HLS-Starship. I wouldn't be surprised if there is a delay to Artemis III as Starship seems to be taking more time than expected but HLS isn't the only issue. My guess is that the spacesuit and even Orion will also need more time and that an official delay to Artemis III won't be announced until the FY26 budget is announced in the spring of 2025 or a few weeks before that time and I expect the delay to be another year again to September 2027. The one year delay to September 2026 was just announced earlier this year (after the HLS-Starship risk-estimate review had already been completed), so they won't be announcing a new delay in the same year.

Why are Artemis missions planned for September? September is the peak of Hurricane season.

Since 1851, 39 major hurricanes (cat3 or bigger) have hit Florida.  That's one roughly every four and a half years.  Most of these did not hit Cape Canaveral.  These have hit as early as June 8th in 1966 (hurricane Alma) and as late as October 24th in 1966 (hurricane Wilma).  The risk is spread out over roughly 5 months every year.  The odds of a major hurricane in any given September hitting close enough to cause a problem isn't that big.  If a hurricane does threaten the launch, they just delay it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Florida_hurricanes

[yg1968]

NASA had no other choice but to contract with them for the first round of HLS Option B, but that didn't mean that SpaceX could make the 2024 date, and obviously they can't. But no one else could have either.

I think that you mean Option A which is Artemis III (Option B is Artemis IV).

I wasn't arguing that NASA's schedule for Artemis III is realistic, I was just saying that for now, the official date is still September 2026 for Artemis III.