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SpaceX Falcon Heavy : PPE/HALO : LC-39A : NLT September 2027
by
gongora
on 09 Feb, 2021 21:06
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Discussion Thread for the PPE/HALO mission.
NSF Threads for PPE/HALO :
DiscussionLaunch NLT September 2027 on Falcon Heavy from LC-39A. Launch vehicle is expected to be fully expendable.
Falcon Heavy will launch the Power and Propulsion Element and Habitation and Logistics outpost for the lunar gateway in 2024 in a single launch.
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-awards-contract-to-launch-initial-elements-for-lunar-outpost
NASA has selected Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) of Hawthorne, California, to provide launch services for the agency’s Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) and Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO), the foundational elements of the Gateway. As the first long-term orbiting outpost around the Moon, the Gateway is critical to supporting sustainable astronauts missions under the agency’s Artemis program.
After integration on Earth, the PPE and HALO are targeted to launch together no earlier than May 2024 on a Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The total cost to NASA is approximately $331.8 million, including the launch service and other mission-related costs.
The PPE is a 60-kilowatt class solar electric propulsion spacecraft that also will provide power, high-speed communications, attitude control, and the capability to move the Gateway to different lunar orbits, providing more access to the Moon’s surface than ever before.
The HALO is the pressurized living quarters where astronauts who visit the Gateway, often on their way to the Moon, will work. It will provide command and control and serve as the docking hub for the outpost. HALO will support science investigations, distribute power, provide communications for visiting vehicles and lunar surface expeditions, and supplement the life support systems aboard Orion, NASA’s spacecraft that will deliver Artemis astronauts to the Gateway.
About one-sixth the size of the International Space Station, the Gateway will function as a way station, located tens of thousands of miles at its farthest distance from the lunar surface, in a near-rectilinear halo orbit. It will serve as a rendezvous point for Artemis astronauts traveling to lunar orbit aboard Orion prior to transit to low-lunar orbit and the surface of the Moon. From this vantage, NASA and its international and commercial partners will conduct unprecedented deep space science and technology investigations.
NASA’s Launch Services Program at Kennedy will manage the SpaceX launch service. The HALO is being designed and built by Northrop Grumman Space Systems of Dulles, Virginia, and the PPE is being built by Maxar Technologies of Westminster, Colorado. NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston manages the Gateway program for the agency. NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland is responsible for management of the PPE.
Learn more about NASA’s Gateway program at:
https://nasa.gov/gateway
Learn more about NASA’s Artemis program at:
https://www.nasa.gov/artemis
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#1
by
TrueBlueWitt
on 09 Feb, 2021 21:07
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First Question - At $333M will this be a fully expendable FH mission to get the required performance + Margins?
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#2
by
wannamoonbase
on 09 Feb, 2021 21:17
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WHOA, That's a big get for SpaceX. Congrats.
Every FH flight is a good day for the universe!
The price would hint that this is fully expendable. Maybe the booster cores will be 'experienced' hardware.
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#3
by
Eagandale4114
on 09 Feb, 2021 21:20
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Would this be an extended fairing flight? Do they need to vertically integrate this at the pad?
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#4
by
Starship_SpaceX
on 09 Feb, 2021 21:22
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Does anyone know the quality of the integration of PPE and HALO?
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#5
by
TrueBlueWitt
on 09 Feb, 2021 21:28
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Would this be an extended fairing flight? Do they need to vertically integrate this at the pad?
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">This Falcon Heavy mission will use an extended payload fairing.
https://t.co/gfwGrcFzWf</p>— Michael Baylor (@nextspaceflight)
February 9, 2021 <script async src="
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Another Falcon Heavy launch on the books! The PPE/HALO stack will require SpaceX's new stretched fairing and weigh around 14-15 metric tons, meaning that this is almost certainly the first fully expendable Falcon Heavy contract.
https://t.co/crbhxa9k7i</p>— Eric Ralph (@13ericralph31)
February 9, 2021 <script async src="
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>[/color][/font][/size]
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#6
by
Starship_SpaceX
on 09 Feb, 2021 21:31
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#7
by
Lars-J
on 09 Feb, 2021 21:37
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If the stack is only 15t, and FH can do ~20+t to TLI - I'm not sure that this needs to be a fully expendable launch. The center core, yes, but the boosters could perhaps be recovered down-range.
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#8
by
TrueBlueWitt
on 09 Feb, 2021 21:53
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If the stack is only 15t, and FH can do ~20+t to TLI - I'm not sure that this needs to be a fully expendable launch. The center core, yes, but the boosters could perhaps be recovered down-range.
It's still unclear how much more the extended Fairing weighs, plus any extra aero drag.
Also what are the G limits for the combined stack?
What is the total impact on performance?
Using Base FH TLI numbers seems like it's going to be overly optimistic.
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#9
by
gongora
on 09 Feb, 2021 22:19
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#10
by
yg1968
on 09 Feb, 2021 23:07
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Why such a high price?
The total cost to NASA is approximately $331.8 million, including the launch service and other mission-related costs.
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#11
by
whitelancer64
on 09 Feb, 2021 23:16
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Would this be an extended fairing flight? Do they need to vertically integrate this at the pad?
Probably yes and yes.
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#12
by
GWH
on 10 Feb, 2021 00:07
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#13
by
TrueBlueWitt
on 10 Feb, 2021 00:12
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#14
by
gongora
on 10 Feb, 2021 00:23
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Since everyone feels a need to quote 3 year old tweets I'm assuming someone checked whether the numbers were ever updated since then?
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#15
by
Eagandale4114
on 10 Feb, 2021 00:29
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Since everyone feels a need to quote 3 year old tweets I'm assuming someone checked whether the numbers were ever updated since then?
My bad, deleted.
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#16
by
edkyle99
on 10 Feb, 2021 00:39
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Why such a high price?
The total cost to NASA is approximately $331.8 million, including the launch service and other mission-related costs.
USSF-67 was $316 million for a 2022 launch. PPE/HALO is $333 million for a 2024 launch. Seems like a trend, maybe. Some of it is launch support, the new fairing, the support tower, etc., but Falcon Heavy itself doesn't appear to be getting cheaper.
- Ed Kyle
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#17
by
whitelancer64
on 10 Feb, 2021 01:01
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There's going to be significant costs associated with ground processing and handling for vertical integration.
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#18
by
soltasto
on 10 Feb, 2021 01:02
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Why such a high price?
The total cost to NASA is approximately $331.8 million, including the launch service and other mission-related costs.
USSF-67 was $316 million for a 2022 launch. PPE/HALO is $333 million for a 2024 launch. Seems like a trend, maybe. Some of it is launch support, the new fairing, the support tower, etc., but Falcon Heavy itself doesn't appear to be getting cheaper.
- Ed Kyle
That's some cherry picking, considering that of those $316 million quite a lot of that is a non recurring cost and the amount NASA is paying can include all sorts of services like final payload integration like mounting the PPE and HALO toghether etc.
By the way
USSF-44 $130 million
USSF-52 about $100 million, less then $170 million for sure
Psyche $117 million
Viasat also finalized a launch contract
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#19
by
GWH
on 10 Feb, 2021 02:01
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It seems they charge whatever is competitive. In this case the only other option may have been Delta IV Heavy but I suspect it wouldn't have the lift capacity.
Sure there will be red tape, a longer fairing and that vertical integration tower that is now getting amortized over many launches.
But still that's $183M in extras.....