SpaceX Tuesday...
Discussion
Big news for SpaceX.
"Official: SpaceX's Starship is the only vehicle selected to move forward as the Human Landing System for NASA's Artemis program, beating out Blue Origin and Dynetics." - Michael Baylor @nextspaceflight
It comes with a $2.9 billion contract, which should help development of Starship somewhat.
I guess NASA wants to take people to Mars as well.
"Official: SpaceX's Starship is the only vehicle selected to move forward as the Human Landing System for NASA's Artemis program, beating out Blue Origin and Dynetics." - Michael Baylor @nextspaceflight
It comes with a $2.9 billion contract, which should help development of Starship somewhat.
I guess NASA wants to take people to Mars as well.
Edited by Beati Dogu on Friday 16th April 21:37
Eric Mc said:
That’s a bit of a turn up. I really thought that the Blue Origin lander was more viable, especially as it is multi-use I.e. can land unmanned equipment such as rovers, habitats etc.
Unless they get a contract too, of course.
Single contract award, although the other Eric (Eric Berger) suggests this is a political play with NASA basically saying "We can't fund everything with the budget we have, so sacrifices are being made".Unless they get a contract too, of course.
Apparently SpaceX also rejigged the payment schedules to fit inside NASA's budget - almost seems like they said "just pay us what you can when you can, we're going anyway"!
I'm struggling to see how a Starship sitting on the surface of the moon can be used to deliver heavy gear like rovers, habitats and processing plants.
The Blue Origin lander is basically a large, flat, platform fitted with derricks which can carry anything and the derricks used to lower the cargo onto the surface.
I haven't seen how SpaceX plan to use the Starship in this role.
The Blue Origin lander is basically a large, flat, platform fitted with derricks which can carry anything and the derricks used to lower the cargo onto the surface.
I haven't seen how SpaceX plan to use the Starship in this role.
SpaceX's latest image shows the Starship with a few outward changes.
The landing rockets are smaller and more numerous than on the previous render. They're in a ring just below the solar panels, which have themselves been moved from the nose.
It now has proper extending legs that keep the base clear of the ground.
The landing rockets are smaller and more numerous than on the previous render. They're in a ring just below the solar panels, which have themselves been moved from the nose.
It now has proper extending legs that keep the base clear of the ground.
Edited by Beati Dogu on Saturday 17th April 02:03
It strikes me that if this all goes ahead, with reusable Starship tankers/HLS and boosters used in combination with expendable SLS and Orion, the contrast in living volume and cost is going to make "Old Space" look ridiculous.
Given Congress' enthusiasm for funding SLS, how are they going to avoid this making them look stupid?
Given Congress' enthusiasm for funding SLS, how are they going to avoid this making them look stupid?
Eric Mc said:
I'm struggling to see how a Starship sitting on the surface of the moon can be used to deliver heavy gear like rovers, habitats and processing plants..
Given that they currently seem to consider them cheap and disposable, I wonder if they'd build some equipment in to a starship and leave it permanently on the moon? Probably a bit awkward as the payload is at the top though.The landing gear on those renders is a fair bit wider than standard, but it still doesn't look like it would cope with uneven terrain that well, I assume they'd have some kind of self levelling system though.
Eric Mc said:
I'm struggling to see how a Starship sitting on the surface of the moon can be used to deliver heavy gear like rovers, habitats and processing plants.
The Blue Origin lander is basically a large, flat, platform fitted with derricks which can carry anything and the derricks used to lower the cargo onto the surface.
I haven't seen how SpaceX plan to use the Starship in this role.
I would imagine that the configuration of a moon Starship is very different. Once it is up there, presumably they’d just use it as a ferry between Earth and the moon, it will never do Earth re-entry, so can be much lighter. Given that the engines are half way up, would the configuration be “fuel at the front, payload at the back”? Once you’ve got that configuration, making the back cylinder openable is not that hard, and given that the gravity on the moon is not a big deal, a lightweight arm + winch could be used to get anything out. They could use it for habitation I suppose, but I would guess that the long term plan would be to dig habitats into the ground for radiation protection. The Blue Origin lander is basically a large, flat, platform fitted with derricks which can carry anything and the derricks used to lower the cargo onto the surface.
I haven't seen how SpaceX plan to use the Starship in this role.
rxe said:
Eric Mc said:
I'm struggling to see how a Starship sitting on the surface of the moon can be used to deliver heavy gear like rovers, habitats and processing plants.
The Blue Origin lander is basically a large, flat, platform fitted with derricks which can carry anything and the derricks used to lower the cargo onto the surface.
I haven't seen how SpaceX plan to use the Starship in this role.
I would imagine that the configuration of a moon Starship is very different. Once it is up there, presumably they’d just use it as a ferry between Earth and the moon, it will never do Earth re-entry, so can be much lighter. Given that the engines are half way up, would the configuration be “fuel at the front, payload at the back”? Once you’ve got that configuration, making the back cylinder openable is not that hard, and given that the gravity on the moon is not a big deal, a lightweight arm + winch could be used to get anything out. They could use it for habitation I suppose, but I would guess that the long term plan would be to dig habitats into the ground for radiation protection. The Blue Origin lander is basically a large, flat, platform fitted with derricks which can carry anything and the derricks used to lower the cargo onto the surface.
I haven't seen how SpaceX plan to use the Starship in this role.
Which SpaceX will also launch.
The other factor in the SpaceX design is that it's intended to be fully reusable.
Unlike the others, which discard various bits to allow their operation.
This is likely to be one of the main factors in the cost of the contract as they only have to fly fuel, maybe spare parts, rather than sending another space craft.
Eric Mc said:
I'm struggling to see how a Starship sitting on the surface of the moon can be used to deliver heavy gear like rovers, habitats and processing plants.
The Blue Origin lander is basically a large, flat, platform fitted with derricks which can carry anything and the derricks used to lower the cargo onto the surface.
I haven't seen how SpaceX plan to use the Starship in this role.
It's easy to forget the size and mass of the Starship. They will have a lot of mass at the bottom (6 Raptors, ~ 9 tonnes just for engines let alone plumbing & legs) so lowering relatively heavy items from the top should not take them outside the centre of gravity. Inside the payload bay of the Starship you can still have a large flat platform with a crane attached, the only real difference is you'll have to lower the items from much higher up and through a door, the size of which isn't totally clear form the render (but "normal" Starship allows for 22 metres by 8 metres). The Blue Origin lander is basically a large, flat, platform fitted with derricks which can carry anything and the derricks used to lower the cargo onto the surface.
I haven't seen how SpaceX plan to use the Starship in this role.
Vehicles for use on the Moon don't have to be particularly heavy either - the Apollo Lunar Rovers were barely quarter of a tonne, about the same as the average American.
When you look at the astronauts at the bottom of the Render, it becomes clearer just how big the door they have depicted actually is - it looks to be about two astronauts high and four wide. So probably about 4 metres by 4 metres (with a very large error bar as the render isn't clear!).
That sort of size is big enough to slide a caravan out and lower it to the ground to live in
Or, being a tad more sensible, you could fit a Dragon capsule in the "payload bay" and still get it out through that size of door, if you wanted a quick "habitat" on the ground. You'd have to provide the capsule with power and other supplies (it can't "free fly" for long) but presumably some of the remaining load capacity could be given over to building supplies e.g. more solar panels.
Animation of the crew/cargo system complete with sound:
https://twitter.com/harrystrangerpg/status/1383235...
https://www.spacex.com/updates/starship-moon-annou...
https://twitter.com/harrystrangerpg/status/1383235...
craig_m67 said:
Do you have a link to the renders, info?
It’s on the SpaceX website now:https://www.spacex.com/updates/starship-moon-annou...
Edited by Beati Dogu on Saturday 17th April 11:10
Beati Dogu said:
Animation of the crew/cargo system complete with sound:
https://twitter.com/harrystrangerpg/status/1383235...
This being Musk, he probably has considered having it pipe that elevator muzak over thier helmet speakers when the use it https://twitter.com/harrystrangerpg/status/1383235...
It's definitely something he'd do. SpaceX actually used that music on their fairing recovery video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTH3mq7SsK4
I'd like the Are You Being Served theme, but perhaps that's too British.
Meanwhile, in Florida, they've static fired the Falcon 9 that'll take the next group of 4 astronauts to the ISS.
The Crew-2 launch is scheduled for Thursday, 22nd April at 6.11 am EDT (1.11 pm UK time).
There'll be a week or so handover before the 4 Crew-1 astronauts depart in their Dragon capsule and splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida.
The previous Soyuz crew (2 Russian, 1 American) landed safely back on Earth this morning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTH3mq7SsK4
I'd like the Are You Being Served theme, but perhaps that's too British.
Meanwhile, in Florida, they've static fired the Falcon 9 that'll take the next group of 4 astronauts to the ISS.
The Crew-2 launch is scheduled for Thursday, 22nd April at 6.11 am EDT (1.11 pm UK time).
There'll be a week or so handover before the 4 Crew-1 astronauts depart in their Dragon capsule and splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida.
The previous Soyuz crew (2 Russian, 1 American) landed safely back on Earth this morning.
RizzoTheRat said:
Beati Dogu said:
Animation of the crew/cargo system complete with sound:
https://twitter.com/harrystrangerpg/status/1383235...
This being Musk, he probably has considered having it pipe that elevator muzak over thier helmet speakers when the use it https://twitter.com/harrystrangerpg/status/1383235...
Eric Mc said:
I'm struggling to see how a Starship sitting on the surface of the moon can be used to deliver heavy gear like rovers, habitats and processing plants.
The Blue Origin lander is basically a large, flat, platform fitted with derricks which can carry anything and the derricks used to lower the cargo onto the surface.
I haven't seen how SpaceX plan to use the Starship in this role.
Essentially the 2 other competitors (Blue Origin & Dynetics) proposals were naff. The selection document ripped Blue Origin's and Dynetics proposals a new one. It openly calls them immature and unrealistic, and don't hold any praises regarding SpaceX's proposal.The Blue Origin lander is basically a large, flat, platform fitted with derricks which can carry anything and the derricks used to lower the cargo onto the surface.
I haven't seen how SpaceX plan to use the Starship in this role.
Eric Mc said:
What did specific areas did they "rip" on the Blue Origin proposal?
My main problem with Blue Origin is that they have virtually no real space experience of any sort.
Well neither did Grumman when they designed the LM to be fair; turned out a pretty decent machine in the end though.My main problem with Blue Origin is that they have virtually no real space experience of any sort.
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