Starship Lunar Lander
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Starship Lunar Lander
https://spacenews.com/starship-uncre...crewed-lander/
Starship uncrewed lunar lander test a “skeleton” of crewed lander
LAUREL, Md. — A SpaceX Starship that will land on the moon an on uncrewed test flight may only be a “skeleton” of the version of that will carry people on the Artemis 3 mission, NASA says.
In a presentation at the annual meeting of NASA’s Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (LEAG) here Aug. 23, Lisa Watson-Morgan, manager of the Human Landing System (HLS) program, said the Starship that performs that uncrewed landing demo mission won’t necessarily be identical to the vehicle that is used to transport astronauts to and from the surface of the moon on Artemis 3 as soon as 2025.
“For the uncrewed demo, the goal is to have a safe landing,” she said. “The uncrewed demo is not necessarily planned to be the same Starship that you see for the crewed demo. It’s going to be a skeleton because it just has to land. It does not have to take back off.”
“Clearly we want it to,” she added, referring to a takeoff, “but the requirements are for it to land.”
That uncrewed landing, scheduled for no earlier than 2024, is a key test ahead of the crewed Artemis 3 mission. Watson-Morgan said that the uncrewed landing will take place in the south polar regions of the moon, but no decisions have been made on a landing site, including whether it will be one of the 13 regions NASA announced Aug. 19 would be considered for the Artemis 3 mission. One factor in choosing a landing site, she said, was to “preserve science in the future” by not disrupting any Artemis 3 landing sites.
There will be an opportunity to do science on the uncrewed demo landing. That includes flying a suite of sensors and imagers “and potentially one payload,” she said, but didn’t specify what kinds of sensors or payloads might fly. The types of payloads NASA were interested in flying include those “that don’t require a tremendous amount of upkeep.”
However, she and others said they want to maximize the performance that Starship offers on lunar landings, with the potential to carry large payloads. While the original HLS competition had a requirement to carry only 100 kilograms of cargo to the surface and back in addition to two astronauts, said Logan Kennedy, HLS surface lead at NASA, the later “sustained” missions will increase that to 182 kilograms to the surface and 160 kilograms back, with a goal of 1,000 kilograms down and back.
“We’re going to leverage all that we can on this mission to try and take up and down as much as we can, using the size of their system,” Watson-Morgan said.….
Starship uncrewed lunar lander test a “skeleton” of crewed lander
LAUREL, Md. — A SpaceX Starship that will land on the moon an on uncrewed test flight may only be a “skeleton” of the version of that will carry people on the Artemis 3 mission, NASA says.
In a presentation at the annual meeting of NASA’s Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (LEAG) here Aug. 23, Lisa Watson-Morgan, manager of the Human Landing System (HLS) program, said the Starship that performs that uncrewed landing demo mission won’t necessarily be identical to the vehicle that is used to transport astronauts to and from the surface of the moon on Artemis 3 as soon as 2025.
“For the uncrewed demo, the goal is to have a safe landing,” she said. “The uncrewed demo is not necessarily planned to be the same Starship that you see for the crewed demo. It’s going to be a skeleton because it just has to land. It does not have to take back off.”
“Clearly we want it to,” she added, referring to a takeoff, “but the requirements are for it to land.”
That uncrewed landing, scheduled for no earlier than 2024, is a key test ahead of the crewed Artemis 3 mission. Watson-Morgan said that the uncrewed landing will take place in the south polar regions of the moon, but no decisions have been made on a landing site, including whether it will be one of the 13 regions NASA announced Aug. 19 would be considered for the Artemis 3 mission. One factor in choosing a landing site, she said, was to “preserve science in the future” by not disrupting any Artemis 3 landing sites.
There will be an opportunity to do science on the uncrewed demo landing. That includes flying a suite of sensors and imagers “and potentially one payload,” she said, but didn’t specify what kinds of sensors or payloads might fly. The types of payloads NASA were interested in flying include those “that don’t require a tremendous amount of upkeep.”
However, she and others said they want to maximize the performance that Starship offers on lunar landings, with the potential to carry large payloads. While the original HLS competition had a requirement to carry only 100 kilograms of cargo to the surface and back in addition to two astronauts, said Logan Kennedy, HLS surface lead at NASA, the later “sustained” missions will increase that to 182 kilograms to the surface and 160 kilograms back, with a goal of 1,000 kilograms down and back.
“We’re going to leverage all that we can on this mission to try and take up and down as much as we can, using the size of their system,” Watson-Morgan said.….
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https://www.engadget.com/spacexs-sta...213926510.html
SpaceX’s Starship will carry an SUV-sized rover to the Moon in 2026
While its next-generation rocket has yet to fly, that’s not stopping SpaceX from booking Starship flights. On Friday, a startup named Astrolab revealed that it had recently signed an agreement with Elon Musk’s private space firm to reserve a spot on an uncrewed Starship cargo mission that could launch as early as mid-2026. “This is SpaceX’s first commercial cargo contract to the lunar surface,” Jaret Matthews, CEO of Astrolab, told The New York Times, adding his company was one of a few customers involved in the flight.
Astrolab is building a vehicle it hopes will one day carry equipment, supplies and people across the lunar surface. The Flexible Logistics and Exploration (FLEX) rover is about the size of a Jeep Wrangler, making it a bit bigger than NASA’s Perseverance rover on Mars. It also features a robotic arm for assisting with cargo and can travel up to 15 miles per hour. Oh, and FLEX can carry up to two astronauts. Once it lands on the Moon, Astrolab claims FLEX will become the largest rover to travel the lunar surface.
Matthews told The Times Astrolab already has customers waiting to use the rover to carry cargo during the 2026 Starship mission. Looking further to the future, Matthews said FLEX could assist with building a permanent human presence on the Moon and beyond. “Ultimately our goal is to have a fleet of rovers both on the Moon and Mars,” he said. “And I really think I see these vehicles as the catalysts ultimately for the off-Earth economy.”
https://www.space.com/moon-rover-ast...pacex-starship
SpaceX’s Starship will carry an SUV-sized rover to the Moon in 2026
While its next-generation rocket has yet to fly, that’s not stopping SpaceX from booking Starship flights. On Friday, a startup named Astrolab revealed that it had recently signed an agreement with Elon Musk’s private space firm to reserve a spot on an uncrewed Starship cargo mission that could launch as early as mid-2026. “This is SpaceX’s first commercial cargo contract to the lunar surface,” Jaret Matthews, CEO of Astrolab, told The New York Times, adding his company was one of a few customers involved in the flight.
Astrolab is building a vehicle it hopes will one day carry equipment, supplies and people across the lunar surface. The Flexible Logistics and Exploration (FLEX) rover is about the size of a Jeep Wrangler, making it a bit bigger than NASA’s Perseverance rover on Mars. It also features a robotic arm for assisting with cargo and can travel up to 15 miles per hour. Oh, and FLEX can carry up to two astronauts. Once it lands on the Moon, Astrolab claims FLEX will become the largest rover to travel the lunar surface.
Matthews told The Times Astrolab already has customers waiting to use the rover to carry cargo during the 2026 Starship mission. Looking further to the future, Matthews said FLEX could assist with building a permanent human presence on the Moon and beyond. “Ultimately our goal is to have a fleet of rovers both on the Moon and Mars,” he said. “And I really think I see these vehicles as the catalysts ultimately for the off-Earth economy.”
https://www.space.com/moon-rover-ast...pacex-starship
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I get the idea from this article that NASA may be leaning on the FAA to let SpaceX get on with their test flights….
https://spaceflightnow.com/2023/06/0...-moon-landing/
NASA concerned SpaceX’s Starship schedule could delay moon landing
https://spaceflightnow.com/2023/06/0...-moon-landing/
NASA concerned SpaceX’s Starship schedule could delay moon landing
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Interesting snippet revealing the planned timeline is just moonshine (sic)…
List of the various SAA's here. Lots of interesting implications for timelines…..
Concerning that the PDR for cryo propellant transfer is only scheduled for Q3 2025. The success of this technology is key for the Artemis III mission to happen which is scheduled for 2025 albeit was an ambitious timeline anyways.…
List of the various SAA's here. Lots of interesting implications for timelines…..
Concerning that the PDR for cryo propellant transfer is only scheduled for Q3 2025. The success of this technology is key for the Artemis III mission to happen which is scheduled for 2025 albeit was an ambitious timeline anyways.…
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NASA's Artemis 3 Mission Architecture as of Early 2024.
Targeting a landing at the Lunar South Pole in Q4 2026 using NASA's SLS Rocket,Orion Capsule, and HLS Starship lander to land the first humans on the moon since 1972.
Starship HLS' nominal loiter capability should allow SLS to launch Orion up to 95ish days after HLS reaches NRHO.
https://spacenews.com/spacex-targets...p-test-flight/
….Propellant transfer is a critical technology for the version of Starship that will be used for NASA’s Human Landing System program starting with the Artemis 3 mission, now scheduled for no earlier than September 2026. SpaceX plans to create a propellant depot in low Earth orbit, filled by a series of Starship “tanker” launches, that would then be used to fuel the lunar lander Starship for its trip to the moon.
The number of tanker launches needed for a Starship lunar lander mission has been a topic of controversy. Elon Musk, founder and chief executive of SpaceX, once stated that no more than eight, and perhaps as few as four, tanker launches would be needed. But at an advisory committee meeting in November, Lakiesha Hawkins, assistant deputy associate administrator for NASA’s Moon to Mars Program, said the number of tanker launches was in “the high teens.”
Asked about that issue at the briefing, both NASA and SpaceX initially declined to give a number. “So much of this is just going to have to come from flight tests,” said Amit Kshatriya, deputy associate administrator for NASA’s Moon to Mars Program. “Probably the reason why you’re hearing different numbers is because we have a lot of different modeling and analysis iterations that are going on.”
Jensen described an iterative process of flight and ground tests. “That will wind up determining how many missions we need,” she said.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson then stepped in. “The question was, how many fuel transfers?”
“I will say it will roughly be ten-ish,” Jensen responded. “It could be lower, depending on how well the first flight tests go, or it could be a little bit higher.”
She downplayed the risks of SpaceX’s approach. “Propellant transfer in orbit sounds complex and scary, and it seems like this big nebulous thing,” she said. “But when you really break it down into the various pieces, we’ve actually achieved almost all of the complex parts already on our operational programs.”
Jensen noted that SpaceX has demonstrated rendezvous and docking through Dragon missions to the International Space Station, and rapid launch through its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy vehicles, which have launched hours apart from different pad and days apart from the same pad. “We’re going to leverage those capabilities that we’ve learned on to Starship.”
The key technology, she acknowledged, is the actual in-space transfer of cryogenic propellants, which has not yet been demonstrated in orbit. That is where the iteration and ground and space tests come in. She noted the company did not have a minimum number of flight tests currently planned for demonstrating propellant transfer.
“What’s been happening over the last few years is that we’ve been building the machine to build the machine,” she said, developing infrastructure required for high production and launch rates for Starship. That will enable the company to move quickly on flight tests, she argued.
“Even if it’s an extensive amount of missions, we have the capabilities and have already proven them through other vehicles,” she said. “We will be able to do what Artemis 3 needs.”
Targeting a landing at the Lunar South Pole in Q4 2026 using NASA's SLS Rocket,Orion Capsule, and HLS Starship lander to land the first humans on the moon since 1972.
Starship HLS' nominal loiter capability should allow SLS to launch Orion up to 95ish days after HLS reaches NRHO.
….Propellant transfer is a critical technology for the version of Starship that will be used for NASA’s Human Landing System program starting with the Artemis 3 mission, now scheduled for no earlier than September 2026. SpaceX plans to create a propellant depot in low Earth orbit, filled by a series of Starship “tanker” launches, that would then be used to fuel the lunar lander Starship for its trip to the moon.
The number of tanker launches needed for a Starship lunar lander mission has been a topic of controversy. Elon Musk, founder and chief executive of SpaceX, once stated that no more than eight, and perhaps as few as four, tanker launches would be needed. But at an advisory committee meeting in November, Lakiesha Hawkins, assistant deputy associate administrator for NASA’s Moon to Mars Program, said the number of tanker launches was in “the high teens.”
Asked about that issue at the briefing, both NASA and SpaceX initially declined to give a number. “So much of this is just going to have to come from flight tests,” said Amit Kshatriya, deputy associate administrator for NASA’s Moon to Mars Program. “Probably the reason why you’re hearing different numbers is because we have a lot of different modeling and analysis iterations that are going on.”
Jensen described an iterative process of flight and ground tests. “That will wind up determining how many missions we need,” she said.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson then stepped in. “The question was, how many fuel transfers?”
“I will say it will roughly be ten-ish,” Jensen responded. “It could be lower, depending on how well the first flight tests go, or it could be a little bit higher.”
She downplayed the risks of SpaceX’s approach. “Propellant transfer in orbit sounds complex and scary, and it seems like this big nebulous thing,” she said. “But when you really break it down into the various pieces, we’ve actually achieved almost all of the complex parts already on our operational programs.”
Jensen noted that SpaceX has demonstrated rendezvous and docking through Dragon missions to the International Space Station, and rapid launch through its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy vehicles, which have launched hours apart from different pad and days apart from the same pad. “We’re going to leverage those capabilities that we’ve learned on to Starship.”
The key technology, she acknowledged, is the actual in-space transfer of cryogenic propellants, which has not yet been demonstrated in orbit. That is where the iteration and ground and space tests come in. She noted the company did not have a minimum number of flight tests currently planned for demonstrating propellant transfer.
“What’s been happening over the last few years is that we’ve been building the machine to build the machine,” she said, developing infrastructure required for high production and launch rates for Starship. That will enable the company to move quickly on flight tests, she argued.
“Even if it’s an extensive amount of missions, we have the capabilities and have already proven them through other vehicles,” she said. “We will be able to do what Artemis 3 needs.”
Last edited by ORAC; 22nd Jan 2024 at 08:40.
