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WASHINGTON – NASA awarded a contract to SpaceX on February 9 to launch the first two elements of its lunar gateway onto a Falcon Heavy in 2024.
NASA will use a Falcon Heavy rocket to launch the Gateway’s Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) and Housing and Logistics Outpost (HALO) modules, destined for the nearly rectilinear halo orbit around from the moon. The contract with SpaceX is valued at $ 331.8 million for launch and “other mission-related costs.”
NASA originally planned to launch the PPE and HALO separately, then dock the two modules autonomously around the moon. The Maxar Technologies award for PPE in May 2019 gave the company the responsibility of arranging the launch of the module and testing it in space before transferring it to NASA.
However, a year later, NASA reconsidered this approach. Agency officials said combining the two modules and launching them together would save the cost of a launch, as well as eliminate the need for a service module on HALO to deliver power and propulsion during its transit to the moon. The combination of the two ground modules also reduced risk by eliminating the need for a stand-alone docking station in space.
“We saved a lot of money putting them together on a single launcher, as well as eliminating technical and operational risks to the program,” Doug Loverro, at the time NASA’s associate administrator for human exploration and operations, said at the time.
When NASA announced this revised approach in May 2020, it said it had determined there was at least one company that could support the launch of the combined gateway elements, but did not disclose that company. SpaceX’s Falcon heavy vehicle, however, became the prime contender given the performance demands of the mission.
These changes in plans for the bridge have drawn criticism from NASA’s Office of the Inspector General. A November 10 report said changing launch plans for the two bridge elements increased the cost of PPE due to technical changes, “high” launch risk and potential performance degradation. from the EPI, which will use its electric propulsion system to go into lunar orbit, will also have to transport the HALO module.
The report also stated that NASA planned to launch the Gateway modules in May 2024, six months later, which the agency had previously said. The February 9 contract announcement confirmed that the launch is now scheduled for no earlier than May 2024. The report noted that the revised launch date meant the bridge would not be able to support the Artemis lunar landing mission. 3 that NASA was planning to fly. end of 2024, but that timeline was under threat due to other issues, such as limited funding for the development of the lunar lander, and will likely be reconsidered by the new administration.
The value of the launch contract is nearly three times the value NASA awarded SpaceX in February 2020 for the Falcon Heavy launch of its asteroid Psyche mission, with a total cost of $ 117 million. However, while the Psyche mission will likely use a standard Falcon heavy vehicle, the launch of the Lunar Gateway may require a new extended payload shroud, which SpaceX is developing for national security missions, as well as some processing. special before launch.
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