NASA's Artemis Program Updates and Discussion Thread 5

[deadman1204]

SpaceX's lander system needs to solve three main problems: cost effective reuse of the tanker upper stages, not excavating the lunar surface excessively with rocket exhaust, and in-space cryogenic propellant transfer and storage. The reuse problem is known to be very hard (the space shuttle spent decades failing at it) but there are two workarounds if it's not solvable: use expendable tankers or use Blue Origin's system. The excavation problem is unknown but Blue's system is a good backup since their much smaller lander is less likely to excavate. If both SpaceX and Blue have trouble with propellant transfer or storage that would be fatal to Artemis, but transferring and storing liquid oxygen and liquid methane is commercially routine on Earth so SpaceX at least has a good chance of success. Overall the landers are exposing Artemis to some risk but with the contracts being competitive fixed-price SpaceX and Blue will try really hard to solve these problems and will probably succeed eventually so I think it's a good calculated risk for NASA to take. As yg1968 pointed out cryogenic propellant transfer is a nice investment for Moon to Mars, both for a chemical Mars architecture like SpaceX's or for nuclear thermal like NASA often dreams about.

This is one of those things where I wonder if fixed price will hinder it. The companies will only want to spend so much on it, which may slow development if its a really hard problem.
Either way, while it may be solved by 26, we shouldn't be surprised if theres no solution before 30 either.

What is being argued is the maturity schedule for cryo storage and transfers on orbit. For initial Lunar landing ops SpaceX only needs a working solution not a fully mature one.

likely schedule example
2025 - barely working solution (hopefully from SpaceX standpoint to be able to move forward to unmanned Lunar landing test)
2026 - working solution (a capability usable for first Artemis manned Lunar landing)
2028 - improved solution (larger scale usage for both Moon and Mars)
2030 - Mature solution but still can be improved/optimized for specific uses (wide scale usage for Moon, Mars and deep space ...)
2050 - encroaching on fully mature solutions with little improvement room for specific uses (well established usage and is generally accepted as the standard for most on orbit transport ops)

I disagree - Spacex needs a fully functioning cryo storage and refueling. Not a "maybe a little". Starship won't be launching every 30 minutes realistically. Its gonna be a couple days between launches. Remember were looking at 15-18 launches with current assumptions.
So assuming there are zero problems, you got a good month+ of refueling launches alone there. Then the HLS will need to go to the moon and wait for orion (which won't launch before hls is there and ready). So HLS will easily spend a month and maybe multiple waiting near gateway. HLS might need to wait out a couple SLS scrubs. If it can only hold its fuel tank for a week after leaving LEO, thats mission failure.

SpaceX must have a fully fleshed out cryro and refueling system before anything else can advance.

[TheRadicalModerate]

Then the HLS will need to go to the moon and wait for orion (which won't launch before hls is there and ready). So HLS will easily spend a month and maybe multiple waiting near gateway. HLS might need to wait out a couple SLS scrubs. If it can only hold its fuel tank for a week after leaving LEO, thats mission failure.

SpaceX must have a fully fleshed out cryro and refueling system before anything else can advance.

Loiter in NRHO isn't going to be a huge boil-off problem.  It's effectively deep space, with no terrestrial IR emissions or albedo heating, and very little from the Moon itself, given the bulk of the orbit is spent far away from it.  They can just point the nose of the Starship at the Sun and eliminate all but a tiny fraction of the heating.

This'll be like everything else SpaceX does:  They'll come up with a barely acceptable solution to begin with, then iterate until it's nearly perfect.  HLS will be operational much closer to the barely-acceptable end of the scale than the nearly-perfect one.

That said, I want to see the RPOD solution for refueling.

[DanClemmensen]

Then the HLS will need to go to the moon and wait for orion (which won't launch before hls is there and ready). So HLS will easily spend a month and maybe multiple waiting near gateway. HLS might need to wait out a couple SLS scrubs. If it can only hold its fuel tank for a week after leaving LEO, thats mission failure.

That's not just a mission failure. It's a failure to provide the service specified in the Option A HLS contract. The contract requires HLS to be able to  loiter in NRHO for (I think) 210 90 days. It they failed to meet this commitment, NASA would not pay them for the mission. SpaceX's bid actually proposed a 100-day loiter: see
  https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2021/04/nasa-starship-first-landings-on-ramp/

I suspect that SpaceX had what they thought was a workable design concept for this before they bid on that contract.

[dglow]

I suspect that SpaceX had what they thought was a workable design concept for this before they bid on that contract.

I suspect that SpaceX had what they figured they could arrive at a workable design concept for this before they bid on that contract.

T, FTFY 

[DanClemmensen]

I suspect that SpaceX had what they thought was a workable design concept for this before they bid on that contract.

I suspect that SpaceX had what they figured they could arrive at a workable design concept for this before they bid on that contract.

T, FTFY 

Yep, it was probably just TheRadicalModerate's "concept": keep the pointy end pointed at the Sun. NRHO is a fairly chill hangout.

[yg1968]

Leuders said [...]

Sorry for nitpicking on this (a lot of people misspell her name) but it is actually: Lueders.

[Paul451]

Small, but wildly off-topic aside:

The reuse problem is known to be very hard (the space shuttle spent decades failing at it)

Surely SLS has put paid to the myth that STS somehow proved reusability is hard or doesn't work? Two architectures, one reusable, one expendable, same approx. annual budget, same contractor base, same technology, but the expendable version has 1/8th the flight-rate of the reusable version. (And that's without throwing away a vehicle with the capability of the Orbiter each flight.)

[yg1968]

Some positive news:

The Exploration Upper Stage (EUS) is a full spacecraft, and a complicated machine, but it is making tremendous progress.

The ML-2 development had issues, primarily due to the weight of the structure, but ended up being a good recovery story for Bechtel. An incredible engineering team re-did the entire design.

https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/heoc-april-2024-minutes-finalrev3.pdf

[VSECOTSPE]

Sorry for nitpicking on this (a lot of people misspell her name) but it is actually: Lueders.

It’s a North Germanic surname like mine, so if anyone is going to be ignorant and misspell it, I am! 

;-)

[deltaV]

From the commercial space suits thread:

So there's "just" four different suits needed:

Orion IVA (the pumpkin suit, worn for Orion launch, reentry, and docking to Gateway/HLS)
Gateway EVA (Axiom's AxEMU)
Starship HLS IVA (the standard SpaceX Dragon IVA suit, which by then should be fully EVA-ready in its own right with the addition of a portable life support backpack - but at least notionally, won't be used in that capacity by Artemis, only as an IVA suit during lunar landing/relaunch)
Starship HLS lunar EVA (Axiom again, probably a different physical set than the ones used on Gateway for dust-contamination reasons)

This seems incredibly stupid. Why are there separate suits?!

At most, one IVA suit and one EVA suit should be needed...

The three types of space suit that an Artemis mission uses are just the visible tip of the iceberg. The real scandal is hidden below the surface: the three different spacecraft that each Artemis mission uses for no good reason, namely Orion, Gateway and HLS. Not only do Orion and Starship have their own unique IVA suits but all three spacecraft have their own unique life support, communications, propulsion, navigation, power, and so on. Orion is Congress's fault, but Gateway appears to be an unforced error on NASA's part. Artemis would be cheaper and simpler if the HLS contractors were responsible for the end-to-end mission of delivering people safely from Earth's surface to the lunar surface and back again, with no SLS/Orion/Gateway. If we did that there would probably only be two suit types per mission, an IVA suit and an EVA suit.

[JohnFornaro]

Moderator:
Caution ⚠️ as we approach the Elon-psychoanalysis zone.

OK, points!

[yg1968]

This document from JAXA is interesting. It shows on page 11 that JAXA plans to build a lunar cargo lander. It also shows a lunar base for 2040. It has an image of HTV-XG which will bring cargo to Gateway.
https://www.exploremars.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/0508_0840_-MOnoda_Going-Together.pdf

[yg1968]

I missed this when it came out but NASA issued an RFI for a lunar freezer system:
https://x.com/NASAProcurement/status/1803138142431547457

[yg1968]

See below:

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.

[DanClemmensen]

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

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.

For those of us who have difficulty navigating the NASA web site, do these requirements documents exist, and if so, where are they?

[StraumliBlight]

For those of us who have difficulty navigating the NASA web site, do these requirements documents exist, and if so, where are they?

The Sam.gov page currently has no documents attached yet.

This NASA page links to all previous NextSTEP announcements.

[AnalogMan]

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

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.

For those of us who have difficulty navigating the NASA web site, do these requirements documents exist, and if so, where are they?

In the SAM listing one of the attached documents is Enclosure A (CIS Capability Studies III: Lunar User Terminals & Network Orchestration and Management System) which has a list of reference documents on page 4 with active links to those documents.

I've attached this document and the first three reference documents:

- LunaNet Interoperability Specification Document
- LunaNet Signal-In-Space Recommended Standard - Augmented Forward Signal (LSIS)
- Lunar Relay Services Requirements Document (SRD)

https://sam.gov/opp/a50279f2e7c245f7be448c87b460783e/view

[thespacecow]

Just putting this here so that it can be examined in the fullness of time:

https://twitter.com/astrogrant/status/1814663311117451612

A (brilliant, maximally dedicated) Artemis engineer or program person will have one (1) beer at happy hour and confess a DEEP lack of confidence that we can even come close to pulling this off (16 superheavy lift launches to get 4 people to the moon, gateway, SLS, HLS, all of it)

[yg1968]

Just putting this here so that it can be examined in the fullness of time:

https://twitter.com/astrogrant/status/1814663311117451612

A (brilliant, maximally dedicated) Artemis engineer or program person will have one (1) beer at happy hour and confess a DEEP lack of confidence that we can even come close to pulling this off (16 superheavy lift launches to get 4 people to the moon, gateway, SLS, HLS, all of it)

I am not sure why it wouldn't be possible. The biggest hurdle is in-orbit propellant transfer but that should be possible to overcome with time. Artemis isn't underfunded, SLS and Orion usually get more than requested and Congress has been funding HLS and the spacesuits at the requested amounts.

[dglow]

Brilliant, dedicated, and steeped in the groupthink of in-house Artemis. It's not surprising the notion of distributed launch scares them.

Recall that until recently the most senior backers of Artemis literally forbade the use of a certain word.
(five letters, two vowels, begins with D, ends with T)