Firefly CEO Tom Markusic: “The CLPS 19D mission represents the third pillar in Firefly’s plan to become America’s premier end-to-end space transportation company" with the Alpha rocket and Blue Ghost lander.
An absolutely thrilling day for the team at Firefly! We will be delivering NASA payloads to the Moon using our Blue Ghost lunar lander!
The other $225 million would support growth initiatives, in particular a medium-class vehicle capable of placing 10 tons into orbit, about 10 times the capacity of Alpha. The company wants to make a first launch of that larger vehicle by early 2024.
So, the lander is named after Blue Ghost fireflies (Phausis Reticulata)? Or is there a Firefly fiction connection that I am not aware of?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phausis_reticulata
So, the lander is named after Blue Ghost fireflies (Phausis Reticulata)?
The Firefly announcement indicates they are using Alpha with a kickstage called SUV.https://firefly.com/nasa-awards-firefly-aerospace-93-3m-to-deliver-suite-of-payloads-to-the-moon-in-2023/"With our Alpha launch vehicle providing launch services, and our Space Utility Vehicle (SUV) providing in-space mobility, Firefly is poised to ensure U.S. preeminence in the commercialization of cislunar space,” said Firefly founder and CEO Dr. Tom Markusic."
Quote from: Steven Pietrobon on 02/05/2021 07:42 amThe Firefly announcement indicates they are using Alpha with a kickstage called SUV.https://firefly.com/nasa-awards-firefly-aerospace-93-3m-to-deliver-suite-of-payloads-to-the-moon-in-2023/"With our Alpha launch vehicle providing launch services, and our Space Utility Vehicle (SUV) providing in-space mobility, Firefly is poised to ensure U.S. preeminence in the commercialization of cislunar space,” said Firefly founder and CEO Dr. Tom Markusic."One read of that sentence could be "we will be offering Alpha, the Space Utility Vehicle, and Blue Ghost to serve all segments of cislunar exploration, but not necessarily using all three on missions together." E.g., they could launch Blue Ghost on a Falcon 9, and separately launch their Space Utility Vehicle on Alpha for other missions (including missions analogous to CAPSTONE), and the statement would still be true. I guess we'll have to see what they end up doing: if Alpha/Space Utility Vehicle has enough payload to carry Blue Ghost and its payloads to the Moon, I'll be impressed.For reference, Firefly is saying that Blue Ghost can carry about 144 kg of payload (94 kg of CLPS payloads, another 50 kg of commercial payloads) to the lunar surface. That doesn't include the mass of Blue Ghost itself. In contrast, CAPSTONE is 25 kg total. Alpha is substantially larger than Electron (630 kg to 500 km SSO, compared to Electron's 200 kg), but even with the Space Utility Vehicle (which is analogous to Photon, although with more efficient ion thrusters), Blue Ghost seems like a pretty tall order to me.Edit: I guess their PUG for Blue Ghost is a little more explicit about payload: they're actually only promising a max of 138 kg to the surface, or 135 kg if you also put 20 kg into LLO. So the 50 kg of commercial payloads they're including on the CLPS mission may implicitly include some payloads not actually going to the surface. Or one or more of the CLPS payloads themselves may be dropped off in LLO. So it slightly lowers the number from my previous paragraph. I don't think it affects the takeaway, though.
Figure 3 illustrates the degree to which the SUV extends the capabilities of the Alpha launch vehicle.For missions exceeding 2000 km, the SUV delivers substantially more payload mass. Up to 600 kg canbe delivered to GEO and up to 500 kg can be delivered to lunar orbit.
The lander will launch on a vehicle other than Firefly’s own Alpha rocket and Space Utility Vehicle (SUV) upper stage under development. The company said it has not yet selected a launch vehicle for the mission.
Apparently they aren't using a firefly rocket for the CLPS task order. Alpha would need SUV which might not be ready (or be too slow), and Beta isn't slated to fly until 2024.QuoteThe lander will launch on a vehicle other than Firefly’s own Alpha rocket and Space Utility Vehicle (SUV) upper stage under development. The company said it has not yet selected a launch vehicle for the mission.https://spacenews.com/firefly-wins-nasa-clps-lunar-lander-contract/
What could they use? F9, Pegasus etc is too expensive, Astra, Electron too weak. F9 GTO rideshare?
Firefly is utilizing hardware from the Netherlands-based @isis_space to deploy customer payloads on Alpha’s upcoming maiden flight. Multiple CubeSats by US institutions were integrated at our Vandenberg facilities with support from @isis_space launch subsidiary, ISILAUNCH.
Firefly and ISILAUNCH are also working on joint manifest coordination for several rideshare and dedicated cluster missions starting in 2022, while ISILAUNCH will support payload integration on other Firefly missions as well.
