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LAS CRUCES, NM – The organization that helped NASA's Apollo spacecraft land on the moon half a century ago is now working with an industry team including a Japanese company of lunar landers to offer a commercial return on the lunar surface.
On October 10, Draper announced that the nonprofit research and development company had submitted a proposal to NASA's commercial lunar payload service (CLPS) program for a small robotic lunar lander capable of carrying scientific loads to the lunar surface. The proposals for the first phase of the CLPS program were due to NASA on 9 October.
Draper's team for its proposal includes General Atomics, ispace and Spaceflight Industries. Draper is the principal responsible for the CLPS proposal. It manages all the efforts, manages the payload operations and provides the guidance, navigation and control systems of the spacecraft.
General Atomics will be responsible for manufacturing the lunar lander. The company has expanded its space capabilities over the past two years, acquiring Smallsat's developer, Miltec, in February 2016, and the factory plant in Colorado from Surrey Satellite's former US subsidiary. Technology Ltd., last November.
Spaceflight will be responsible for launch services for the LG. The company, which is negotiating carpool launch services, announced a month ago to have organized the launch of another lunar lander, developed by the Israeli organization SpaceIL, which will be launched at the end of the year. Year as a secondary payload on a SpaceX Falcon 9.
The other team member, ispace, will use what Draper calls the "design agent" for the lunar lander, while providing ridesharing services for additional payloads. The Tokyo-based company is developing its own lunar landing gear and announced its intention in September to launch its first two missions in 2020 and 2021, also as a secondary payload for Falcon 9 missions.
The team organization gives ispace the opportunity to participate in the SPDP. The latest call for proposals for the program, launched on September 6, limits competition to US-based companies "for the purpose of industrial mobilization".
Draper, in his statement about his team, indicated that he was complying with the "national source certification" provision of the RFP, which required that the "master of the work" that all companies that build, produce, manufacture or vehicles used for the execution of the SPDP by the principal contractor must be commercial suppliers of the United States. "
Draper joins what can be a competitive field for CLPS competition. At least three other companies – Astrobotic, Masten Space Systems and Moon Express – planned to bid from last week. These three companies had already received support from NASA under the Soft Touchdown Lunar Cargo Transportation and Landing program, or Lunar CATALYST, in which NASA provided technical support to the lunar landing centers offered by these companies.
NASA officials have announced plans to launch a first round of IDIQ indeterminate awards for CLPS by the end of the year, which will be followed by task orders sent to companies to route specific charges to the moon.
These missions could be launched as early as 2019, although agency officials said it was more likely that the first SPDP missions would not fly until at least 2020, depending on the status of companies likely to compete with each other. . Draper, in his announcement, did not specify when he was expecting his lander, called Artemis-7, to steal when he received a price from the SPDP.
The proposed lander is not the first time Draper, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, supports a lunar mission. As part of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the 1960s, the organization, then known as the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory and led by Charles Stark Draper, developed the guidance systems for Apollo. The renowned Draper Lab was established by MIT in 1973.
"Draper is proud of its long-standing relationship with NASA and is excited to strengthen this partnership with a team that will provide commercial transportation of lunar launchers and lunar landers and restore the Moon as a destination for future human space flights." , from Seamus. Tuohy, senior director of space systems at Draper, said in a statement. The organization noted that the "7" in Artemis-7 indicates that it will be Draper's seventh lunar landing mission, after the six Apollo lunar landings.
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