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Patrão da Amazon à conquista da Lua

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60 novos satélites chegaram ao espaço

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Starship design has been slightly modified again. The engine count is now down to six (was previously seven): three sea-level ones and three vacuum ones.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1131429686548942848

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1131433322276483072

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A Russian Soyuz-2.1b rocket was struck by lightning during launch on May 27, 2019. The mission was a success despite the strike, the GLONASS-M satellite the rocket was carrying reached orbit.

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Alexei Leonov: Entre as estrelas e os pincéis

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Home/News/NASA announces contractor for first stage of Lunar Gateway

NASA announces contractor for first stage of Lunar Gateway

Maxar Technologies will build the propulsion system of the planned Moon-orbiting space station, which will be key to NASA's larger plan to return humans to the Moon by 2024.
By Korey Haynes



The power and propulsion system for the Lunar Gateway will be built by Maxar.
Courtesy of Business Wire
In a talk at the Florida Institute of Technology on Thursday, NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine announced that Maxar Technologies will build the first stage of NASA’s planned Lunar Gateway.

The Gateway, part of NASA’s larger Artemis program to return to the Moon, is meant to be a waystation of sorts placed in a long orbit around the Moon. It will provide a habitat for astronauts while they prepare to embark on longer missions, including Moon landings, and serve as a place to assemble the components of rockets and other equipment in space.

The first element to be built and tested is a propulsion system, to move it between orbits and make sure it doesn’t drift away. Maxar (a new company formed from several veteran space industry players) is being awarded up to $375 million to build the system, which will convert solar power to electrical energy to power the Gateway, as well as provide propulsion, communication, and docking capabilities.

Getting the first stage of the Lunar Gateway into place is an important pre-requisite for NASA’s plans to land humans on the Moon by 2024. 

Moving forward

Following on a directive from the White House to return America to to the Moon, Bridenstine also laid out NASA’s detailed plans for the next five years of launches culminating with a Moon landing in 2024. That includes three launches as part of the newly-named Artemis program. The first will be an uncrewed test flight for the still-to-be-completed SLS rocket and Orion crew capsule, the second a crewed flight to lunar orbit, and a third to dock with the Gateway and land humans on the Moon.

Fellow space companies Blue Origin and Draper will aid Maxar in developing the system, with Blue Origin providing expertise in systems that will affect human explorers, and Draper handling navigation and orbital trajectories.

Maxar will build their system on solar electric propulsion (SEP), which turns solar energy into both electrical and propulsive power. Solar panels turn sunlight into electricity, which is stored in batteries, just as in other solar arrays.

But the system turns that sunlight into propulsion as well. Rather than rely on chemical propellants, which add significant weight and is explosive by nature, SEP feeds energy into Hall thrusters. These futuristic engines use electricity to ionize gases like xenon or argon, shooting them out the back of the spacecraft to provide thrust.

As part of the SEP system, Maxar has already developed a Roll Out Solar Array (ROSA) that, as its name implies, rolls out like a carpet instead of the more traditional accordion-like unfolding of most space-based solar arrays.

The thrusters will be critical to Gateway’s ability to move from one orbit to another. NASA’s ultimate goal for the station is to enable travel not just to the Moon, but to Mars and other deep-space destinations. Those missions would require it to fly at different orbits depending on where the astronauts might be going.

Multiple Moon missions

And while the Gateway is being built up, NASA will also be relying on commercial partners to develop and deliver refueling, landing and ascent vehicles that can be waiting when Orion docks with the Gateway in 2024. The agency recently announced 11 companies that will be vying to deliver those spacecraft.

NASA also plans a slew of smaller launches, as part of the CLPS program, with payloads in the 15-20 pound range, delivering science experiments to the lunar surface as soon as next year. These projects will fly commercially, and test systems ranging from manufacturing to communications to power on the lunar surface, to prepare for the human explorers who will follow.

NASA is leaning hard on private contractors to deliver technology for most parts of Artemis. While SLS and Orion are NASA-led projects (although also built and delivered by contractors), the lander, ascent, and now power and propulsion systems are all being built independently. NASA hopes to transition to a model where it’s no longer owning hardware, but buying services when it comes to some elements of space travel, Bridenstine emphasized. That means relying on outside vendors to develop fully capable spacecraft.

The administration asked for an additional $1.6 billion to jump-start the Artemis program, but has not yet specified a total cost. The budget that emerged from the House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday did not allocate these additional funds, though they did restore other money the administration had cut for education and various science missions. The budgeting process is still underway, and the Senate must still deliver its own version of the budget. It’s unclear what will happen to NASA’s 2024 plans without the funding to support them.

http://www.astronomy.com/news/2019/05/nasa-announces-contractor-for-first-stage-of-lunar-gateway?utm_source=Yesmail&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=News0_ASY_190531_00000_SL-Ver.A-rendered

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NASA announces three private companies to land science experiments on the Moon

These partners will carry both NASA and commercial payloads to the lunar surface over the next two years, paving the way for the space agency’s eventual crewed return.
By Korey Haynes



Intuitive Machines is one of three companies announced today that will land NASA science experiments on the moon within the next two years.

During a NASA press conference Friday, Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of the agency’s Science Mission Directorate, introduced the first three of nine companies awarded contracts to deliver payloads to the Moon over the next few years.

Those companies are Astrobiotic of Pittsburgh, Intuitive Machines from Houston, and Orbit Beyond, located in both Edison, New Jersey and Daytona, Florida. The contracts for all three total about $250 million.

The landers are small, roughly as tall as a human and capable of carrying small science experiments weighing up to ten pounds. They represent the first step in NASA’s Artemis program to return to the Moon.

Science on the Moon

Each company is building a lander capable of delivering multiple payloads to the Moon as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS). These payloads would be various science and technology experiments, designed by both NASA and commercial partners.

Many of these experiments focus on volatiles like water, which can be used for fuel or to sustain life during crewed missions. Previous missions have examined the Moon’s water ice, but scientists need to learn more in order to best utilize it for future missions.

NASA also hopes to accomplish basic astronomical research with CLPS experiments, such as learning about the history of the solar system, which is well-preserved on the Moon’s largely unchanging surface.

The docket also includes experiments aimed at testing and demonstrating technologies that could be useful for future lunar missions. These include an Earth-to-Moon laser communication system, manufacturing tests on the Moon’s surface, and various designs for providing power on the Moon.

Lunar Payloads

Two of the companies, Intuitive Machines and Orbit Beyond, plan to launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, while Astrobiotic has yet to decide which launch company it will use. All three companies already have launch dates and landing sites in mind.

Astrobiotic plans to take off in June 2021, landing the following month in Lacus Mortis, a large crater on the Moon’s near side. They are slated to fly up to 14 payloads.

Intuitive Machines wants to launch in July 2021, landing six days later with up to five payloads. They’re targeting either the Sea of Storms or the Sea of Tranquility, just east of where Apollo 15 landed in 1971. Spokespeople from the company pointed out that their lander also includes solar panels and can provide power and communications to any payloads attached to their spacecraft.

Orbit Beyond will carry four payloads to the Sea of Rains, and plans to land first, in September of 2020.

None of these regions are near NASA’s eventual crewed target of the Moon’s South Pole-Aitken Basin, but the agency stresses that part of the CLPS program is exploring multiple different sites on the Moon to keep their experiments diverse.

The companies also addressed the dangers of flying budget missions to the Moon, as the Israeli Beresheet mission recently demonstrated with its landing failure. They acknowledged that the descent and landing phase is tricky and likely the most dangerous. But all of them point out that they are testing to learn about potential dangers, and that their critical systems have enough redundancies to conquer the most likely failures.

Future flights of the landers could potentially feature scaled-up versions of the spacecraft to bring full-size rovers and large science experiments to the Moon.

The first launch will happen in just over a year if they keep to schedule.

http://www.astronomy.com/news/2019/05/nasa-announces-three-private-companies-to-land-science-experiments-on-the-moon