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Missions To The Moon (HSF) / Re: NASA's Artemis Program Updates and Discussion Thread 5
« Last post by yg1968 on Today at 09:42 pm »From the same Eric Berger article:Quote from: Eric BergerSo how would NASA astronauts get to the Moon without the SLS rocket? Nothing is final, and the trade space is open. One possible scenario being discussed for future Artemis missions is to launch the Orion spacecraft on a New Glenn rocket into low-Earth orbit. There, it could dock with a Centaur upper stage that would launch on a Vulcan rocket. This Centaur stage would then boost Orion toward lunar orbit.https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/12/how-did-the-ceo-of-an-online-payments-firm-become-the-nominee-to-lead-nasa/
Another possible scenario for future Artemis missions is to launch the Orion spacecraft on a Falcon Heavy into low-Earth orbit. There, it could dock with a Falcon upper stage that would launch on another Falcon Heavy rocket. This Falcon stage would then boost Orion toward lunar orbit.
This provides the dual redundancy that NASA wants for launch services, while still retaining the Orion spacecraft with its ESA Service Module.
Yes, in such a scenario, I would imagine that Orion would be a GFE (Gorvernment Furnished Equipement) but the rest of the proposal would hopefully be commercial. Ideally, you should have two separate commercial BLEO LVs.
