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Somewhere inside the US spacecraft, a new team of NASA engineers began designing a spacecraft to send astronauts back to the surface of the moon. It would be the first visit of humanity since the glory of the sixties.
The Lander Study Group, as it's called inside NASA, put its very first ideas on paper in recent weeks. Popular mechanics. What is most exciting about this emerging work is that the new lunar lander will not be a one-and-done like that of Apollo 11. This 21st century lander will make a round trip.
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Presentation of the Reusable Lunar Lander
Anatoly Zak
In this presentation, NASA engineering stated its intention to design a reusable crew cabin for the LG with its own propulsion system. This part of the ship is called the ascent step and is responsible for returning the crew from the lunar surface to lunar orbit. (The descent phase aims to safely bring astronauts to the moon and, as with the Apollo program, this phase would be left out).
The idea of a reusable lander lies in the fact that NASA and its international partners are already designing a small station for lunar orbit receive the crews' visit at least once a year from the mid-2020s. The idea is for the lunar lander to dock with what is known as the Moon Bridge and stay there until the arrival of a new crew aboard NASA's Orion spacecraft.
With a reusable lander, the lunar gateway could suddenly be much more multidimensional for scientists, engineers and space nerds. Instead of just working on the bridge in the void of space, part of the Orion crew can board the landing gear and make an exit on the lunar surface.
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Between man and the moon
Although the idea of a reusable undercarriage has a logistical sense, there are important technical issues that prevent us from doing so. On the one hand, the entrance gate will rest on a giant lunar orbit shaped egg that, although good in some cases, is not the most convenient place to reach the lunar surface in terms of fuel consumption. That's why the NASA team allocated 45 tons to the entire landing system, which is almost double the Orion mass.
The design team also plans to split the undercarriage into three 15-ton segments: the crew cabin with the climb motor, the descent phase and the space tug. The space tug would do most of the heavy work, pushing the landing gear away from its Gateway port to the lowest possible lunar orbit, where the descent phase would then support the maneuvers. braking.
As a result, the consumable descent phase, which would occur with each new Orion crew (as well as the propellant for the ascent engine), could have a minimum size, while the space tug could be used for several trips. ferry. The two potentially reusable components of the undercarriage – the ascent phase and the space tug – could be refueled into lunar orbit from a 22-tonne tanker sent from the Earth.
Back on the moon, take two
NASA
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This reusable spacecraft is not the first lunar landing gear proposed since Apollo 11, the last crewed mission on the moon, back in 1972. In the early 2000s, NASA wrote the impressive Altair lander for the Constellation program, President George W. Bush's vision of returning to the moon and then going to Mars. NASA abandoned Altair when the project ran into financial and political problems. The Orion probe was the main survivor of the now-canceled Constellation program, but without the undercarriage, the four-seat capsule could only turn around the moon.
In the meantime, various aerospace contractors in the United States, Europe, and Russia have modified various designs of landing gear, mainly at their own expense and without government approval. The last example was Lockheed Martin's LG proposal revealed earlier this month.
However, what differs from this study is its approval by NASA, and its design is being launched as part of a broader multinational effort. While it remains unclear who will pay the bill for humanity's return trip to the moon, several space agencies have expressed optimism about the financial support of their governments.
Of course, these preliminary plans may change over the years of planning and development. But the reusable spacecraft of the Lander Study Group is another compelling evidence that humans are ready to return to the moon.
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