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NASA announced Tuesday that it had awarded SpaceX a $ 331 million contract to launch the first two elements of the Lunar Gateway outpost in 2024 using a modified version of the Falcon Heavy rocket to project the massive core. from the deep space station to the moon.
The bridge power and propulsion element and the housing and logistics outpost will be launched in tandem no earlier than May 2024 aboard the Falcon Heavy rocket from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center at the NASA in Florida.
The $ 331.8 million launch services contract, awarded by NASA’s Launch Services Program to Kennedy, includes the launch of the Falcon Heavy and “other mission-related costs,” said the agency in a press release. The value of the $ 331 million contract is nearly three times the price NASA pays for a July 2022 Falcon Heavy launch with the asteroid probe Psyche.
The PPE and HALO modules are the first two elements of the Gateway mini space station, which NASA says will serve as a crossing point for astronauts in transit to and from the moon’s surface as part of the program to moon exploration Artemis from the space agency. Contributions from international partners, such as a joint Euro-Japanese housing module and a Canadian robotic arm, will eventually join the gateway in orbit around the moon, forming an outpost approximately one sixth the size of the Station. international space.
The power and propulsion element, built by Maxar, will be powered by large wings of solar panels and will use plasma rocket jets for deep space maneuvers. It will also provide communications and attitude control for the Gateway complex. The HALO, developed by Northrop Grumman in partnership with Thales Alenia Space in Italy, will provide the first living quarters for astronauts on the bridge, and will have mooring ports for the arrival and departure of cargo ships and ships from crew.
SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket will transport the PPE and HALO into a high-altitude orbit around Earth. The EPI’s solar-electric thrusters will guide the stack to the moon, where the bridge will enter an elliptical lunar orbit to position itself for docking Orion’s crew capsules with astronauts. NASA intends that the man-made lunar landers also connect to the moon-orbiting gateway, and landing craft could be refueled at the gateway for multiple trips to and from the lunar surface.
The combined function of the HALO and Orion life support systems will support up to four astronauts for 30 days on the bridge, according to NASA.
The Trump administration has set a 2024 calendar target for the first astronauts to return to the moon’s surface as part of NASA’s Artemis program. White House Biden has said it supports the Artemis program, although the new administration has not said whether it will stick to the 2024 schedule, which already faced technical and financial headwinds before President Trump does not leave office.
NASA decided the year to launch the PPE and HALO elements on the same rocket. The move reversed NASA’s previous Gateway acquisition strategy, which would have launched the two elements on separate rockets before they automatically docked into deep space.
Tandem launch of the PPE and HALO sections requires a rocket with an extended payload shroud. The payload fairing currently flying on SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy isn’t long enough for the job, but SpaceX plans to introduce an extended fairing for future U.S. national security satellites, as well as a new hangar for the job. vertical integration to pad 39A to allow attachment of military payloads in a vertical orientation at the launch site.
The new fairing design and the launch pad integration tower are part of a Pentagon launch services deal that SpaceX won last year. ULA has won a similar launch contract for the Department of Defense, and the two companies will share national security launch tasks until 2027.
The fairing and integration building are necessary for SpaceX to launch all of the Army’s space missions, and the enlarged fairing is also a tool for the Falcon Heavy to launch the gateway.
SpaceX is under contract for other parts of NASA’s Artemis architecture.
The company’s Dragon XL cargo vehicle will deliver supplies to the Gateway space station. Dragon XL missions will also launch on Falcon Heavy rockets.
A version of SpaceX’s next-generation Starship vehicle, which engineers design as a fully reusable rocket, could be used as a lunar lander to transport crews to and from the lunar surface. SpaceX is competing with teams led by Blue Origin and Dynetics for the full moon lander development contract.
NASA plans to launch astronauts from Earth aboard Orion capsules flying above the heavy rocket of the government-owned space launch system.
SpaceX has launched three Falcon Heavy rocket missions to date, all of which are successful, and the company has at least two more planned for this year. With the Gateway launch contract, SpaceX has seven confirmed Falcon Heavy missions in its backlog, including two US Space Force missions this year, the launch of a Viasat broadband communications satellite, and the explorer d NASA Psyche asteroids in 2022, and two Dragon XL cargo missions to the bridge. .
The Falcon Heavy is made up of three modified Falcon 9 first stage boosters connected together in a three-core configuration. The rocket’s 27 main Merlin engines produce some 5.1 million pounds of lift-off thrust, more than any other currently operational rocket.
The NASA Inspector General reported in November that the agency had spent more than $ 500 million on design work for the bridge to date.
Despite the decision to combine the EPI and HALO into one launch, which NASA said would save money and simplify development, the launch of the gateway’s power element was delayed from December 2022 to May 2024.
“The PPE and HALO development timelines have been negatively impacted by the agency’s ever-changing gateway requirements, including NASA’s decision to co-manifest and launch both elements on the same commercial rocket rather than separately as originally planned, ”the inspector said the general last year.
The Inspector General also cited the Trump administration’s 2024 calendar target for returning astronauts to the moon, although NASA did not plan to use the bridge for the first Artemis lunar landing mission, at least as proposed in the previous administration.
“The Lunar Mandate 2024 which drove the development timeline accelerated in the first place and resulted in a lack of timeline slack in the Gateway program,” the Inspector General said.
NASA’s choice to co-manifest the PPE and HALO will add 10 months to the travel time of the modules to their operating station in a nearly rectilinear halo orbit around the moon, the inspector general said.
“The decision to launch the PPE and HALO together, while avoiding the cost of a second commercial launcher, contributed to cost increases due to the redesign of several components, high launch risk and ‘a longer flight to lunar orbit’. said the Inspector General.
As part of Gateway’s original launch strategy, Maxar was responsible for booking the launch of the power and propulsion element. Maxar had previously hired SpaceX for the solo launch of the EPI, an agreement that the Inspector General said was terminated in favor of the combined launch of the EPI and HALO, which came with additional requirements, such as the Falcon Heavy with the extended fairing. .
Maxar had already paid SpaceX $ 27.5 million for the PPE launch contract before terminating the deal, the inspector general said.
“In our view, accelerating NASA’s acquisition of the EPI and HALO before fully defining the gateway requirements has added significant costs to project development efforts and increases the risk of future delays in the schedule and increased additional costs, ”said the Inspector General.
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Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @ StephenClark1.
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