Lori Glaze: "We have seen real commitment to try and do that... from both Blue and from SpaceX."
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NASA’s Moon ship and rocket seem to be working well, so what about the landers?
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The disconnect between what is reported and what is going on in the trenches is bigger than the distance to the Artemis crew right now.
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the orion program serves the same purpose regardless -- to waste money in the proper congressional districts.
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1. These plans are genial fantasies for these timelines. Add a year to each mission date.
2. Please don't kill anyone in your rush.
2. Please don't kill anyone in your rush.
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Eric, what would you say the probability of a moon landing in 2028 is? 60%? 10%?
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A landing in less than three years? Near 0 my good internet commenter. Before the decade is out is a stretch.
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Neither Blue Origin or SpaceX will have their HLS systems ready in two years. Mostly because even though Artemis II is going well, it's still not over and they haven't even decided what Artemis III missions will be? What...? Gah... it's all so silly.
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Voix des Airs
Ars Praefectus
They are going to, and coming back from, the moon so re-entry will be from the moon. Also, will the lander even have enough fuel to get back after traveling to, and landing and re-ascending from, the moon's surface? (I don't know, but it seems plausible that it won't/can't be guaranteed to).
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My impression has been that they’d dock Orion to HLS in LEO; use HLS to push that whole stack to LLO; detach, land, and ascend in HLS; then transfer back to Orion for the trip back to Earth and landing.
Of course, I was probably reading a lot into what’s been said by anyone who actually knows anything, and adding too many details from people who are only speculating.
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Just to take a small detour…
Reports are that Artemis II’s crew will be seeing parts of the Moon no one else has seen. Since the Apollo missions I understand, but the command modules flew many orbits around the Moon on each mission. So, what will the Artemis crew see that the Apollo crews didn’t?
Reports are that Artemis II’s crew will be seeing parts of the Moon no one else has seen. Since the Apollo missions I understand, but the command modules flew many orbits around the Moon on each mission. So, what will the Artemis crew see that the Apollo crews didn’t?
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Do you think she means it like "Oh, you’re not KIDDING."
Or maybe she means it like "Oh, you’re NOT kidding."
I think it's the second one.
Or maybe she means it like "Oh, you’re NOT kidding."
I think it's the second one.
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Starship is not human rated (for carrying astronauts from earth) because it does not have a launch escape system.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Launch_escape_system#Usage
Therefore so far, NASA would not want to use Starship to launch astronauts from earth.
— The Dragon spacecraft from SpaceX does have a launch escape system which allows it to travel from earth to the ISS with NASA astronauts.
— Orion being used as part of the Artemis program, also has a launch escape system.
** Here is a NASA article about the benefit of launch escape systems and human rated spacecraft.
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20200004673/downloads/20200004673.pdf
** As for the Human Landing Systems, while NASA will partner with SpaceX and Blue Origin for those spacecraft for their eventual transporting astronauts to and from the Moon, so far NASA will not require HLS spacecraft with launch escape systems.
https://www.nasa.gov/reference/human-landing-systems-2/
— The Space Shuttle did not have a launch escape system. In 1983 the Space Shuttle Challenger’s rockets failed causing the breakup of the spacecraft. All 7 of the astronaut crew were killed.
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Moon's atmosphere is 0% of Earth's, so a parachute would work just as well.
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This time around they're turning off the hologram that covers up the Death-Star-esque giant dish scooped out of the lunar surface and used for tachyonic FTL comms by the aliens monitoring our planet.
(/s but honestly very little surprises me anymore so...
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It has to be near zero given the amount pre-requesities starship HLS has in order to be a viable system.
He literally said it was a joke.
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Orion saves a ton on fuel requirements by doing a direct re-entry to Earth from lunar orbit. Starship HLS doesn't have a heat shield and doesn't have enough fuel to go from the lunar orbit to LEO. HLS could potentially re-fuel in lunar orbit, but re-fueling logistics still need to be proven in LEO. Lunar orbit re-fueling is not something that will happen any time soon, so Orion is still the best option to get humans back to Earth from the moon.
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Honestly thought this was AI Slop after reading the second line.... I'm so over AI
Glad it was instead just a joke
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The Apollo CSM orbited at an altitude of about 100km, so would have only seen a small amount of the lunar surface. Also, Apollo missions launched while the moon was waxing, arriving well before full moon for better lighting conditions when landing.
Artemis II launched pretty much at full moon, so the moon is now waning, so pretty much the whole opposite side of the moon is illuminated compared to the Apollo landings. And they are passing by at a much higher altitude than most of the other Apollo flights, so can see pretty much the whole moon (the exception being of course Apollo 13, but they were busy trying not to die at the time).
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Orion has the heatshield that has survived entry into the Earth's atmosphere at 11.1 km/sec, a speed typical for a spacecraft falling back to Earth from the distance of the Moon. That was done on Orion I and that particular heatshield experience unexpected damage. It's not known if Lockheed fixed the problem since there has been no test flight prior to the Artemis II launch last week.
Starship has its TUFROC tiles that normally are good to 1400C (Celsius) for entry from low earth orbit (LEO). NASA and SpaceX are thought to have an improved TUFROC with added ablator material to extend that use temperature to 2700C to survive a return from the Moon.
To answer your question, the Orion spacecraft appears to be the baseline for returning the Artemis II crew to Earth. The heatshield on the Starship lunar lander likely will be eliminated for that mission.
The Starship lander will return the crew from the lunar surface to the Orion spacecraft that's waiting in low lunar orbit (LLO) at ~100 km altitude. The crew will transfer to the Orion which has enough delta V capability (~1300 m/sec) to break out of LLO and head back to Earth for a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. The Starship lunar lander would likely be deorbited and crashed onto the Moon similar to the way the Ascent Stage of the Apollo lunar lander was disposed of. It's just space junk after the crew moves into the Orion spacecraft and heads back to Earth.
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There is literally no reason for private companies to develop a Moon lander on their own. There is simply no commercial case for the Moon to be made at this point in time that would compel them to undertake such a risky endeavor.
NASA only began real work into what is now the HLS contracts in 2019 and, again, with little funding to match.
The reason for the HLS' particular structure is that the White House did not get the budget they originally requested for a NASA operated lander and had zero interest in fighting Congress to fix that. So they tried to replicate the Bush era commercial cargo program and Obama commercial crew program while ignoring their greater inherent simplicity and very serious delays that happened with the latter.
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theradicalmoderate
Ars Tribunus Militum
In re. flying Arty 3 with an ICPS or not: We know that the SRBs+core alone can put an ICPS+OSA+SCA+ESM+CM into a 2222km x 30km orbit, because that's what Arty 2 did. The real restriction here is the core's inability to restart, so it has to be jettisoned in an orbit that causes it to reenter.
So let's assume that they shoot for a 600km circular orbit for all of the HLS operations during the mission. Orion would then need to provide the delta-v to raise the core's drop-off orbit of 30x600 to 600x600. That requires 163m/s of delta-v, which is roughly 16% of Orion's 1000m/s delta-v budget.¹
So if Orion can perform two RPODUs (rendezvous, prxomity ops, docking, and undocking) and a 160m/s deorbit burn for about 830m/s, they should be able to do without the ICPS.
Unlikely possibility: The "spacer" adapter that would be required to make Orion able to use the same crew access arm and umbilicals, as if it had an ICPS stage, is going to weigh almost nothing, and doesn't have to do any stage jettison maneuvers. If MSFC or Teledyne-Brown could fit it with a cheesy reaction control system capable of providing about 200m/s of delta-v, the SLS core could inject Orion directly into 600 x 600, and the cheesy RCS system could deorbit the core stage for disposal.
Or NASA could pull a China and just leave the core in orbit, as a cautionary tale for future generations.
_____________
¹1000m/s is a frequently quoted number for Orion, and it's close to correct if you're loading in sump losses, flight performance reserve, and emergency maneuvering margin. But ESM+CM, which is all that's left of the Orion stack after it separates from the SLS, weighs 25.9t, of which 8.6t is hypergolic propellant. The AJ10-OMS engine has Isp=316s, which makes the theoretical delta-v 1250m/s.
Again, 1000m/s is a good planning number. Just remember that it already has a hefty fudge factor included.
So let's assume that they shoot for a 600km circular orbit for all of the HLS operations during the mission. Orion would then need to provide the delta-v to raise the core's drop-off orbit of 30x600 to 600x600. That requires 163m/s of delta-v, which is roughly 16% of Orion's 1000m/s delta-v budget.¹
So if Orion can perform two RPODUs (rendezvous, prxomity ops, docking, and undocking) and a 160m/s deorbit burn for about 830m/s, they should be able to do without the ICPS.
Unlikely possibility: The "spacer" adapter that would be required to make Orion able to use the same crew access arm and umbilicals, as if it had an ICPS stage, is going to weigh almost nothing, and doesn't have to do any stage jettison maneuvers. If MSFC or Teledyne-Brown could fit it with a cheesy reaction control system capable of providing about 200m/s of delta-v, the SLS core could inject Orion directly into 600 x 600, and the cheesy RCS system could deorbit the core stage for disposal.
Or NASA could pull a China and just leave the core in orbit, as a cautionary tale for future generations.
_____________
¹1000m/s is a frequently quoted number for Orion, and it's close to correct if you're loading in sump losses, flight performance reserve, and emergency maneuvering margin. But ESM+CM, which is all that's left of the Orion stack after it separates from the SLS, weighs 25.9t, of which 8.6t is hypergolic propellant. The AJ10-OMS engine has Isp=316s, which makes the theoretical delta-v 1250m/s.
Again, 1000m/s is a good planning number. Just remember that it already has a hefty fudge factor included.
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I assume the "whole stack" includes the Orion capsule, its service module, and the Starship, with the latter providing the thrust to go from LEO to lunar orbit, and to be used (without the Orion capsule + service module) for the lunar landing and takeoff.
I doubt that the Starship could survive re-entry to Earth. So presumably the crew would return to Earth in the Orion capsule. Probably the service module could supply sufficient thrust to return Orion to Earth without the Starship.
What would then happen to the Starship, I don't know. Leave it in lunar orbit? Crash it on the Moon? Or (assuming enough fuel is left), land it back on the Moon when the mission is done, to be potentially used in some later mission as building material for a lunar base???
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Just don't install Outlook on those computers, and don't rely on Bluetooth!
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