NASA has provided updated details on revised strategies for SpaceX and Blue Origin as they work to accelerate the development of lunar landers for the Artemis program. The agency directed both companies last year to devise “acceleration approaches” for their Human Landing System (HLS) landers.<\/p>\n
SpaceX’s revised plan involves utilizing its Starship vehicle as both the lunar lander and the translunar injection (TLI) stage. This new approach shifts the critical docking event between the Starship and NASA’s Orion spacecraft from lunar orbit to Earth orbit. According to Jessica Jensen, vice president of customer operations and integration at SpaceX, this change allows the combined Starship-Orion stack to travel to low lunar orbit, rather than a near-rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO).<\/p>\n
Jensen explained that conducting the docking in Earth orbit, similar to the practice planned for the Artemis 3 mission, enhances crew safety. It also provides the crew with the ability to abort from the lunar surface at almost any time. Furthermore, the direct route to the moon reduces propellant requirements and the number of propellant tanker launches needed. Steve Creech, NASA HLS program manager, noted that this revision eliminates demanding loiter requirements for the lander in lunar orbit, allowing it to remain at its propellant depot until Orion is ready. This also enables SpaceX to align the HLS version of Starship more closely with the standard Starship fleet design.<\/p>\n
For Blue Origin, the most significant change to its Blue Moon architecture involves discontinuing the use of a dedicated “transporter” spacecraft. This transporter was intended to store and transport propellants to the moon for the Blue Moon lander. Instead, the company will now employ “Mark 1-derived transfer stages,” a reference to its uncrewed Blue Moon Mark 1 lander. Creech indicated that this architectural shift removes some of the primary technology development risks for Blue Origin.<\/p>\n
This change allows Blue Origin to potentially fly its crewed Blue Moon Mark 2 lander earlier than initially planned. John Couluris, senior vice president of lunar permanence at Blue Origin, stated that manufacturing for the Artemis 3 Mark 2 crew module and other lander subsystems is progressing rapidly, with factories operating around-the-clock shifts. Blue Origin anticipates completing the vehicle for Artemis 3 and being ready for launch in 2027, reinforcing their commitment to the program despite investigating a recent incident with their New Glenn rocket.<\/p>\n
NASA plans to use one of these revised landers for Artemis 4, the first crewed lunar landing attempt, currently scheduled for 2028. The Artemis 3 mission will serve as a test flight in low Earth orbit, where an Orion spacecraft will dock with prototypes of both Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Mark 2 and SpaceX’s Starship lunar landers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NASA has shared updated details on how SpaceX and Blue Origin are revising their lunar lander designs to accelerate development for the Artemis program’s future missions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1981,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[1976,1977,1978,132,1785],"yoast_head":"\n