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

[Coastal Ron]

It is important to remember that NASA works for the President, and is funded by Congress. NASA has little ability to do things on its own. So if Congress funds NASA to do something sole sourced, like they did with the SLS and Orion MPCV, then NASA will salute and do that.

And just to emphasis this even more, Congress doesn't really care if NASA has to rely on sole sourced solutions, as the SLS and Orion MPCV program demonstrate quite clearly. Both of those programs are way over budget and far behind any optimistic development schedule, and Congress has shown little interest in either of those metrics.

So it is not NASA per se that determines its overall risk, it is Congress too.

Its a little revisionist history here.

Nope, actual history. I was there (i.e. as in watching in real time), paying attention.

Part of the reason spacex won is because of cost, it was the only proposal nasa could afford.

You haven't read the Source Selection Statement for the Appendix H: Human Landing System, Option A Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships-2, which you can find here.

SpaceX was the only bidder to propose a solution that was both believable from a technical standpoint, and affordable from a budget standpoint. Blue Origin lost on both of those points.

Blue had to buy enough politicians to have their winning bid written into law.

Yeh, it is romantic to think that every member of Congress, regardless of what state they are in, can be bought outright and in the public view. However unless you can PROVE that members of Congress were paid off, that is just unsubstantiated twaddle you are peddling to support your position. Do better please.

Thats not to say spaceX's bid was bad. However if spaceX had bid the same price as blue did, I bet no one would have been chosen.

Look, Congress gave NASA a very small amount of money, so why are you blaming the contractors here? The blame goes with Congress, not the contractors, for not understanding how difficult the task was.

Remember Congress has been mostly ambivalent about the Artemis program, not excited in any way. Which is why Congress only grudgingly provided additional funding for a second HLS contractor.

[TheRadicalModerate]

Not that it isn't fun re-litigating the SLD/SLT origin story every 5-6 pages or so, but those lunar surface cargo slides max out with payloads of about 15t.  Given that both providers are proposing payload masses larger than that (Blue was at 30t expendable and SpaceX can in theory go up to its own mass-to-LEO value, at least expendably), what does this mean?

Does NASA not believe the providers?  Is NASA just being conservative until real performance data is available?  Can NASA not think of payloads bigger than 15t?

One would think that NASA would be itching to start trading higher mass for reduced complexity and increased margins.  But they don't seem to want to do that--yet.  Why?

[Eric Hedman]

Not that it isn't fun re-litigating the SLD/SLT origin story every 5-6 pages or so, but those lunar surface cargo slides max out with payloads of about 15t.  Given that both providers are proposing payload masses larger than that (Blue was at 30t expendable and SpaceX can in theory go up to its own mass-to-LEO value, at least expendably), what does this mean?

Does NASA not believe the providers?  Is NASA just being conservative until real performance data is available?  Can NASA not think of payloads bigger than 15t?

One would think that NASA would be itching to start trading higher mass for reduced complexity and increased margins.  But they don't seem to want to do that--yet.  Why?

Neither SpaceX nor Blue Origin have actually landed a payload on the Moon yet.  They may want to wait and see how much margin the landing options actually have in practice before committing to anything bigger.  That's my guess.

[Paul451]

One would think that NASA would be itching to start trading higher mass for reduced complexity and increased margins.

Somewhat off-topic, but generally that's still (unfortunately) not a typical mission trade. Instruments/systems are proposed up to the limit of the suggested mass-budget. If you tell people there's double the mass-budget, they'll propose double the number of instruments, not to look for ways to use that mass to reduce complexity/cost. Anything else is a "wasted opportunity", "false economy", and "flying for the sake of flying". Each of those instruments/systems then has the same mass-limits as if it were flying on a lower-mass/fewer-instruments mission. In other words, more mass means higher expected mission costs. There are occasional signs of insiders fighting the good fight to change the thinking, but it still seems deeply baked into the culture. To the point where mission classes are back-of-the-envelope costed by mass. The agency might not be able to "afford" 30 tonne payloads.

While I doubt it is deliberate, proposing lower mass-budgets now than what eventually flies might help discipline project ambitions. Then, when every single proposed instrument/system inevitably goes over-mass in early development, instead of the the usual costly & delaying gram-shaving, they can be allowed to fly heavy.

[yg1968]

Remember Congress has been mostly ambivalent about the Artemis program, not excited in any way. Which is why Congress only grudgingly provided additional funding for a second HLS contractor.

Congress has actually been very supportive of Artemis in authorization and appropriation bills. The reason that Congress did not provide full funding for HLS from the outset is that Congress figured that it would do with HLS what it did with commercial crew which is to slowly ramp up the funding. In general, Congress doesn't like huge increases in budget appropriations requests.

[yg1968]

Not that it isn't fun re-litigating the SLD/SLT origin story every 5-6 pages or so, but those lunar surface cargo slides max out with payloads of about 15t.  Given that both providers are proposing payload masses larger than that (Blue was at 30t expendable and SpaceX can in theory go up to its own mass-to-LEO value, at least expendably), what does this mean?

Does NASA not believe the providers?  Is NASA just being conservative until real performance data is available?  Can NASA not think of payloads bigger than 15t?

One would think that NASA would be itching to start trading higher mass for reduced complexity and increased margins.  But they don't seem to want to do that--yet.  Why?

The 12mt to 15mt is the expected payload mass of the pressurized rover and the foundation surface habitat. What payload do you expect would be above 15mt?

[rockets4life97]

How far ahead is SpaceX than Blue on building their lander? Is it smaller or larger than the gap between Starship and New Glenn? Starship's progress has been very public, but I haven't heard much about where Blue is at.

[DanClemmensen]

How far ahead is SpaceX than Blue on building their lander? Is it smaller or larger than the gap between Starship and New Glenn? Starship's progress has been very public, but I haven't heard much about where Blue is at.

I'm not sure there is a way to compare. Starship HLS is a derivative of Starship, while BO HLS is built from scratch. Therefore we expect to see some Starship hardware already, and we do. Also, BO HLS (Appendix P, for Artemis V) must meet the same requirements as Starship HLS Option B (Artemis IV), but SpaceX must have at least Option A capability for Artemis III. To a first approximation this required the Starship HLS demo to occur about three years after contract award, while the BO HLS demo was to be about seven years after contract award.

In addition, the HLS contracts are for entire missions, not just landers, so you must consider the refill systems for both approaches, not just boosters and landers.

[TheRadicalModerate]

The 12mt to 15mt is the expected payload mass of the pressurized rover and the foundation surface habitat. What payload do you expect would be above 15mt?

I guess that's sort of my ultimate question.  I see three scenarios:

1) Things stay to plan forever, in which case, nothing will ever need to be >15t.

2) SLS/Orion get swapped out, partially or completely, for HLS Starship / Blue Moon staged from LEO, with a CCP system to take crews to and from LEO.  The savings is either removed from the budget or moved around to fund other non-Artemis programs--in which case, cadence stays the same, and nothing will ever need to be >15t.

3) SLS/Orion get swapped out, resulting in mission cadences 2-3x greater than planned, in which case, dumping huge amounts of cargo at the base will make lots of sense, and cranking HDL missions up to near their maximum payloads also makes lots of sense.

Personally, I'd be tempted to fill up all the extra space on Starship HDL missions with extra solar masts and heat rejection equipment, and to leave an HDL or two around to store methalox for APUs to get through lunar night with a crew.  It doesn't take much systems engineering, and it's nicely in keeping with the, "Send useful, heavy, dumb stuff for nearly free," architecture philosophy.

And I'd love to see a wet workshop version of HLS Starship become the foundation surface hab.  If they get slightly clever, they can put ports in the LOX tank, to which additional hab modules can be connected.

[DanClemmensen]

And I'd love to see a wet workshop version of HLS Starship become the foundation surface hab.  If they get slightly clever, they can put ports in the LOX tank, to which additional hab modules can be connected.

I keep staring at the Ships and boosters at Starbase and watching the workers enter the tanks via the access hatches. Those hatches are actually fairly big, so it looks like The necessary pressure reinforcement is already there. The hardware to convert these to actual passageways with proper hinged doors "should(!)" be doable. Within each Ship, maybe add equivalent hatches to the top dome and shared dome to also be converted to proper hatchways after landing.  OK, this is the worst sort of armchair engineering speculation, but it's fun.

TBC, "wet workshop" has been dreamed of for decades, and has never actually been cost-effective, because there is a lot more to a station than simple pressurized volume.

[Coastal Ron]

Remember Congress has been mostly ambivalent about the Artemis program, not excited in any way. Which is why Congress only grudgingly provided additional funding for a second HLS contractor.

Congress has actually been very supportive of Artemis in authorization and appropriation bills.

NASA is ~0.5% of the total Federal Budget, and out of the 535 members of Congress few have much NASA work that is important to them. What you really mean to say is that the members of the committees and sub-committees that focus on the NASA budget have been supportive of the return-to-Moon effort (i.e. Artemis), but even then they have not produced the full-fledged funding profile needed for a program that requires a LOT of challenging development.

The reason that Congress did not provide full funding for HLS from the outset is that Congress figured that it would do with HLS what it did with commercial crew which is to slowly ramp up the funding.

Considering how deleterious that funding curve was for getting Commercial Crew operational as quickly as possible, why would you speculate that would be a good thing for the current Congress to do for Artemis? I mean, don't you think that such a slow ramp up in funding would be the exact WRONG way to fulfill the 2024 return-to-Moon goal? 

In any case, I think you are speculating about why Congress as a whole has not fully funded the Artemis program, as the HLS Option B contracting history shows (i.e. even with the low bid SpaceX made with Starship HLS, it was almost too expensive for NASA to award - see the Source Selection Statement for the details).

In general, Congress doesn't like huge increases in budget appropriations requests.

Which is too general of a statement to be meaningful. Congress will fully fund programs that feel are important, meaning Artemis is not likely viewed as that important. Which it isn't, it is a political luxury, not something that has an immediate connection with most taxpayers.

For instance, how can it be explained that Congress is OK with not making the 2024 landing date? They have not held hearings to find out what the issues are, and what Congress can do to ensure a 2024 landing date. Or any other date. Congress is funding Artemis enough to keep the program moving forward, but otherwise does not really care when NASA finally gets back to the Moon.

[TheRadicalModerate]

And I'd love to see a wet workshop version of HLS Starship become the foundation surface hab.  If they get slightly clever, they can put ports in the LOX tank, to which additional hab modules can be connected.

I keep staring at the Ships and boosters at Starbase and watching the workers enter the tanks via the access hatches. Those hatches are actually fairly big, so it looks like The necessary pressure reinforcement is already there. The hardware to convert these to actual passageways with proper hinged doors "should(!)" be doable. Within each Ship, maybe add equivalent hatches to the top dome and shared dome to also be converted to proper hatchways after landing.  OK, this is the worst sort of armchair engineering speculation, but it's fun.

TBC, "wet workshop" has been dreamed of for decades, and has never actually been cost-effective, because there is a lot more to a station than simple pressurized volume.

It'd be really easy for SpaceX just to build a crew module all the way down to the garage deck, with an airlock (or two) opening out onto just enough space to get people in and out of the elevator.  That's certainly a lot less work than a wet workshop.

The foundation hab layouts I've seen (see here) don't seem to be paying much attention to GCR and solar flare exposure, so maybe being 35m-45m off the ground doesn't really matter very much.  However, while a non-trivial regolith-moving project, it's possible to pile regolith up around the LOX tank.  So even a fairly bare-bones living and office space, with all the complex stuff up on the garage deck, could reduce the GCR load substantially.

NASA seems to want to keep the foundation hab design in-house, and they're constraining it to <12t landed mass, and a 4.4m x 7.8m payload volume.  This is a fine example of why thinking about this now is important:  AFAICT neither HDL will support this layout:  The HDL Starship can't get this out of any conceivable hatch, and the Blue Moon HDL can't fit it underneath the propellant tankage.  Maybe a Blue Moon v1 could handle this?

It sure seems a lot more reasonable to build the hab into an HDL Starship and have done with it.

Update:  There is a solar storm shelter.

[yg1968]

Considering how deleterious that funding curve was for getting Commercial Crew operational as quickly as possible, why would you speculate that would be a good thing for the current Congress to do for Artemis? I mean, don't you think that such a slow ramp up in funding would be the exact WRONG way to fulfill the 2024 return-to-Moon goal? 

In any case, I think you are speculating about why Congress as a whole has not fully funded the Artemis program, as the HLS Option B contracting history shows (i.e. even with the low bid SpaceX made with Starship HLS, it was almost too expensive for NASA to award - see the Source Selection Statement for the details).

Blue's first HLS proposal wasn't very good, so it turned out for the best. Even for commercial crew, the lack of funding forced NASA to stick with SAAs (space act agreements) for a longer time than Congress wanted to which was also a good thing.

Incidentally, I think that you mean Option A (the Artemis III lander), not Option B (the Artemis IV lander).

Which is too general of a statement to be meaningful. Congress will fully fund programs that feel are important, meaning Artemis is not likely viewed as that important. Which it isn't, it is a political luxury, not something that has an immediate connection with most taxpayers.

I meant that Congress doesn't like large increases in NASA's budget. Artemis is considered important within NASA's budget but NASA's budget isn't expected to have large increases.

[Coastal Ron]

I meant that Congress doesn't like large increases in NASA's budget.

NASA is ~0.5% of the Federal Budget, and most of the 535 members of Congress probably have few opinions about NASA's budget overall. No more than any other agency or department in the federal government (i.e. the other ~99.5% of the Federal Budget). In other words, NASA is not special from the standpoint that many in Congress may not like to see large increases in budget, they wouldn't want to see than in ANY agency or department - not without good reason.

And the good reason for front loading a budget is because of the cost of development. Pretty much every development program needs most of their funding early on. Not doing that actually INCREASES the overall cost of a program, because you are spreading over many more years and the development is stretched out in a highly inefficient manner.

So if Congress actually cared about the goal of Artemis, they would have provided the proper funding at the beginning so that NASA had a chance of making the official 2024 goal. Now, with yearly schedule pushbacks, don't be surprised if NASA won't be ready to land humans on the Moon until 2030 or so...

Artemis is considered important within NASA's budget but NASA's budget isn't expected to have large increases.

Because Congress doesn't care about when the next landing of humans on the Moon will occur.

[clongton]

...don't be surprised if NASA won't be ready to land humans on the Moon until 2030 or so...

If even then.

[StraumliBlight]

NextSTEP Q: CIS Capability Studies III – Lunar User Terminals & Network Orchestration and Management System

NASA’s long-term vision to provide for a resilient space and ground communications and navigation infrastructure in which space mission users can seamlessly “roam” between an array of space-based and ground-based networks has been bolstered by innovative studies delivered by industry through the Next Space Technologies for Exploration (NextSTEP) – 2 Omnibus Broad Agency Announcement vehicle.  Initially, NASA seeks to create an interoperable architecture composed of a mixture of existing NASA assets and commercial networks and services.  In the long-term, this will allow for a smooth transition to fully commercialized communications services for near-Earth users.  The overarching goal is to create a reliable, robust, and cost-effective set of commercial services in which NASA is one of many customers.

NASA’s Commercialization, Innovation, and Synergies (CIS) Office has released a solicitation notice under the Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships-2 (Next STEP-2) Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) to seek industry insights, innovative guidance, and demonstrations in the following two (2) Study Areas:

  1. Lunar User Terminals
  2. Network Orchestration and Management System (NOMS)

To support lunar surface operations, NASA is seeking state-of-the-art industry studies, system development, and demonstrations for a dual-purpose navigation and communication lunar surface user terminal.  The terminal must meet technical requirements provided by the government to support lunar surface exploration plans and ensure interoperability with developed LunaNet and Lunar Communications Relay and Navigation System (LCRNS) standards.  The requirements will be split into separate LunaNet Augmented Forward Signal (AFS) navigation receiver and communications transceiver capabilities.  However, the development of a combined communications and position, navigation, and timing (CPNT) system capable of meeting the full suite of requirements is desired.

Additionally, NASA is seeking innovative industry studies and demonstrations on advanced Network Orchestration and Management Systems (NOMS) that effectively address NASA technical requirements aimed at controlling and interfacing with a globally distributed network of Satellite Ground Systems currently supporting the Near Space Network (NSN).

The resulting studies will ensure advancement of NASA’s development of space communication and exploration technologies, capabilities, and concepts.

[yg1968]

The last post is off topic and has therefore been moved to the Artemis Update and Discussion thread:

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=58212.msg2606529#msg2606529

[AndrewM]

Update on SLD from the annual GAO report published in June 2024. The HLS - SLD portion is page 39 (sheet 48). The next major event should be PDR for both landers. https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-24-106767.pdf

Certification baseline reviews:

SpaceX and Blue Origin held certification baseline reviews in May 2023 and November 2023, respectively. HLS officials said this review is the equivalent of a system requirements review, which ensures that the project’s performance requirements and proposed system architecture or technical approach are aligned with the mission’s performance requirements.

SpaceX primary risk

the program found significant issues with SpaceX’s supporting evidence that its mission can be achieved within schedule and acceptable risk. HLS officials noted that SpaceX’s schedule lacked sufficient detail to assess progress, and, as a result, SpaceX agreed to provide more detailed schedule data for its SLD lander.

Blue Origin primary risk

The program also found that the Blue Origin lander needed additional work to align technical margins with schedule and known risks. Program officials said they expect Blue Origin to complete the additional work by the SLD preliminary design review