{"id":45858,"date":"2023-10-04T20:47:34","date_gmt":"2023-10-04T12:47:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/its-crunch-time-for-companies-building-nasas-commercial-lunar-landers\/"},"modified":"2023-10-04T20:47:34","modified_gmt":"2023-10-04T12:47:34","slug":"its-crunch-time-for-companies-building-nasas-commercial-lunar-landers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/its-crunch-time-for-companies-building-nasas-commercial-lunar-landers\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s crunch time for companies building NASA\u2019s commercial lunar landers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Within a few months, NASA may celebrate the first successful landing of an American spacecraft on the Moon in more than 50 years. This would be an immense confidence boost for commercial startups with an eye on the nascent market for lunar missions. It would also signal to NASA that it can rely on commercial companies for foundational elements of the agency\u2019s Artemis program to return humans to the Moon.<\/p>\n

Realistically, there\u2019s also a chance that the first two commercial robotic lunar landing missions may miss the mark. One or both could crash on the lunar surface or otherwise falter along the journey from the Earth to the Moon. This wouldn\u2019t be a disaster. NASA officials have smartly set low expectations for these early commercial lunar missions, but these first landers are several years late, and a series of failures would inevitably raise questions about the program\u2019s future.<\/p>\n

Five years after NASA started the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, two companies finally have lunar landers ready for final launch preparations. Astrobotic\u2019s robotic Moon lander, Peregrine, has been in storage since March at the company\u2019s headquarters in Pittsburgh. This week, Intuitive Machines showed off its completed Nova-C lander to Ars in Houston.<\/p>\n

Both landers could ship to Cape Canaveral, Florida, within weeks as they prepare for launch windows later this year. Intuitive Machines is slated to launch first in mid-November on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to start a roughly weeklong journey culminating in a landing near the Moon\u2019s south pole. Although it was ready to fly first, Astrobotic\u2019s launch date is more uncertain because of delays in United Launch Alliance\u2019s Vulcan rocket, the first of which will send Astrobotic\u2019s Peregrine lander toward the Moon. Right now, the earliest the Vulcan rocket could be ready to launch Astrobotic\u2019s lander is in December.<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

Thomas Zurbuchen, who led NASA\u2019s science division from 2016 until the end of 2022, recently told Ars that a successful landing by a CLPS (pronounced \u201cclips\u201d) contractor would be an important demonstration of US leadership in space. \u201cIf a company can do what most countries and most agencies cannot do, that is really important,\u201d he said. \u201cIt makes you extremely optimistic about what is possible in space today.\u201d<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s taken a lot longer to get to this point than NASA and industry officials expected. Astrobotic and Intuitive Machines originally said they could be ready to land on the Moon in 2021. That was before the COVID pandemic put the brakes on the program.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst, the supply chain was impacted by the pandemic,\u201d said Chris Culbert, NASA\u2019s CLPS program manager, in a meeting of lunar scientists last month. \u201cThings slowed down.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been almost 51 years since the last time a US spacecraft achieved a soft landing on the Moon. Suppliers just weren\u2019t ready with on-the-shelf products to sell to Astrobotic or Intuitive Machines.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust because we know we used to be able to do it does not mean that we do today,\u201d Zurbuchen said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you think about it, right now, we are funding probably more than two-thirds of the lunar landers ever built in human history, and we\u2019re doing it all at once,\u201d Culbert said. \u201cThe supply chain wasn\u2019t ready for that. That supply chain is starting to build out. We don\u2019t dictate the supply chain. I don\u2019t buy engines. I don\u2019t buy tanks. I don\u2019t buy landing struts. These companies are doing it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you asked me in 2018 or 2019, I would have bet a good dinner that it\u2019s faster (than it has been),\u201d Zurbuchen said. \u201cWhat I didn\u2019t know at that point was that there was going to be COVID, which certainly was a factor. But yeah, it took longer than I expected. That probably means that I misjudged the engineering development quite substantially.\u201d<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

Five years in<\/h2>\n

Zurbuchen was instrumental in starting the CLPS program in 2018 as the Trump administration retargeted the Moon as NASA\u2019s next destination in space. The idea was to foster a market for commercial lunar missions, relying on firm fixed-price contracts similar to how NASA works with commercial providers to ferry crew and cargo to the International Space Station.<\/p>\n

However, while NASA provided billions of dollars in government funding to SpaceX, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman for development of crew and cargo spacecraft to support the ISS, the agency is only buying cargo delivery services from commercial vendors. It\u2019s up to each company to raise money to develop their lunar lander, with the prospect of lucrative government contracts dangling to help lure investors.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn that sense, it\u2019s a lighter touch even than commercial cargo or commercial crew,\u201d Zurbuchen said.<\/p>\n

These are robotic missions, not the larger commercially built landers from SpaceX and Blue Origin (although both are eligible for CLPS missions) that NASA has selected to carry astronauts to and from the Moon\u2019s surface on Artemis missions. The first wave of CLPS landers will deliver several tens of kilograms of NASA-funded instruments to the Moon through service contracts, allowing researchers to gather valuable data on lunar geology, plasma and dust, and precision landing technology.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe opportunity to do science on the Moon was desperately needed,\u201d Culbert said. \u201cWe\u2019re getting some really groundbreaking science opportunities on the Moon.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have struggled, at times, with a lack of NASA\u2019s control over decisions on the commercial side,\u201d Culbert said. \u201cWe are paying the lion\u2019s share of the money, but these still aren\u2019t NASA missions. That\u2019s a cultural change inside the agency.\u201d<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

NASA officials in 2018 acknowledged the strategy underpinning CLPS was risky. Former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine compared the strategy to taking \u201cshots on goal,\u201d a sports analogy where not every shot is expected to land in the net.<\/p>\n

Despite the long gap since the last US lunar landing, NASA found a lot of interest from the private sector in CLPS. NASA has selected 14 companies to become eligible for CLPS task orders, and five of the contractors have won competitions to actually fly missions to the Moon.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Thomas Zurbuchen (left), former head of NASA\u2019s science directorate, speaks with representatives of OrbitBeyond in 2019. <\/p>\n

Credit:
\n NASA\/Aubrey Gemignani<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

Intuitive Machines has won three task orders, and Astrobotic and Firefly Aerospace, headquartered in Central Texas, have each won two. Draper Laboratory and Masten Space Systems also received CLPS task orders from NASA, but Masten filed for bankruptcy last year, and that mission was canceled. NASA will move payloads assigned to the Masten lander to missions contracted to other companies.<\/p>\n

Aside from the program\u2019s scientific purpose, CLPS was established to provide business opportunities for startups that could grow into long-term partners for NASA\u2019s lunar ambitions. Some CLPS contractors are also working on other technologies, such as power generation, data relay, and rovers, that could become crucial capabilities to support longer-duration astronaut stays on the Moon\u2019s surface.<\/p>\n

Setting expectations<\/h2>\n

Early in the CLPS program, Zurbuchen guessed the initial batches of CLPS lander missions might have a 50-50 chance of success. NASA officials watched intently as private ventures like the Israeli Beresheet lunar lander and the Hakuto-R lander from the Japanese company ispace crashed on the Moon. Those missions did not have any significant NASA involvement.<\/p>\n

A lander developed by India\u2019s space agency also crashed in 2019, but Indian engineers overcame the setback, tried again, and succeeded with a landing in August. Russia\u2019s Luna 25 mission also launched in August, but it plummeted to the Moon\u2019s surface after a botched engine burn.<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

China is three-for-three with robotic lunar landers since 2013, a remarkable streak of success that included the first landing on the far side of the Moon and an ambitious mission to return lunar rock samples to Earth.<\/p>\n

All told, the world\u2019s roster of lunar landers has achieved a 50 percent success rate over the last decade, perfectly in line with Zurbuchen\u2019s prediction for the first few CLPS missions. We\u2019re about to find out if Astrobotic and Intuitive Machines beat those odds. If they don\u2019t, perhaps NASA will reassess its approach to the CLPS program.<\/p>\n

\u201cSuppose we\u2019re at the end of \u201924, we\u2019ve done multiple landings and none of them work, I think it\u2019s worth looking at the game. Did it make sense?\u201d Zurbuchen told Ars. \u201cI really considered it an experiment when I came up with the idea. Generally speaking, NASA has done well to bet on entrepreneurial entities to do very, very hard challenges. Of course, I believe this will be successful. I think it\u2019s really important, come 2025 or so, to really look at the program and say, hey, is it successful? Are there things that NASA should do to affect the program one way or another?\u201d<\/p>\n

If necessary, NASA could change its relationship with the CLPS contractors to provide more government support. So far, NASA engineers have provided only high-level advice and recommendations to commercial lunar lander companies.<\/p>\n

\u201cSuppose it didn\u2019t work, in \u201925, that would be one of the variables I would look at. Should NASA have a tighter touch?\u201d Zurbuchen said. \u201cWhen I set up the program, I basically felt that when you turn on NASA oversight, it\u2019s very hard to back off from that. It\u2019s straightforward to add oversight. It is not straightforward to subtract oversight.\u201d<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

China\u2019s Chang\u2019e 4 lander on the far side of the Moon in January 2019.<\/p>\n

Credit:
\n China National Space Administration\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

Experience with other programs has shown that NASA involvement usually drives up costs. Most of CLPS missions NASA has ordered so far have been valued at less than $100 million. That\u2019s a bargain compared to the cost of a typical NASA-managed science mission.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have essentially, at this point, committed more than $650 million to lunar activities,\u201d Culbert said. \u201cThat\u2019s a pretty big jump from where we were just five years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s say one or both of the first CLPS landers reach the lunar surface intact. NASA and industry officials say that outcome would help unlock the potential for commercial companies to do more than land on the Moon. If the commercial model works on the Moon, will it work for NASA\u2019s probes exploring the Solar System? This is an important question as NASA\u2019s planetary science budget is in disarray amid top-level government funding cuts and the ballooning cost of the agency\u2019s Mars Sample Return mission.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom a science perspective, your mind starts going, can we use this model for other things?\u201d Zurbuchen said. \u201cHow are we going to Mars? Commercially? You\u2019ve seen some of the traditional approaches, at times, have struggled.\u201d<\/p>\n

Land it, and they will come?<\/h2>\n

The 14 companies in NASA\u2019s pool of CLPS providers include industry juggernauts like SpaceX, Lockheed Martin, and Blue Origin. But the winners of CLPS task orders so far have been smaller enterprises, with employee counts in the hundreds and not the thousands.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur money helped the companies over the hump,\u201d Culbert said.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s been a learning curve for these CLPS companies and for NASA itself, even before any of the landers reach the launch pad.<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

\u201cSmall companies, big companies, the companies that have won task orders, I have a lot of faith in not just the depth of their technical skill set, but in their understanding of doing complex missions,\u201d Culbert said. \u201cWhere they do sometimes lack is in their depth of staffing.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor NASA missions, we are used to having an overwhelming access to resources, a lot of them. That\u2019s not true with these small companies. They don\u2019t have the depth to have 17 thermal engineers that can do 14 different forms of analysis to make sure that we understand exactly what\u2019s going to happen with the mission,\u201d Culbert said.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t just NASA that underestimated how long it would take to design, build, and launch a commercial Moon lander.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things that we underestimated going in was the state of the technology,\u201d said Trent Martin, vice president of space systems at Intuitive Machines. \u201cWe\u2019ve been to the Moon before.\u201d<\/p>\n

Intuitive Machines\u2019 Nova-C lander will carry cryogenic methane and liquid oxygen propellants, not the easier-to-use hypergolic fuel used on most of the other CLPS landers. The methane propulsion system offers higher efficiency, and Intuitive says it\u2019s easier to scale to larger lander designs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe originally set out to build a Chevrolet, and we built a Ferrari,\u201d Martin said. \u201cI think we built a Ferrari because we\u2019re aerospace engineers, and aerospace engineers like to build really cool things \u2026 If you want the cheaper version of a mission, you can\u2019t build a Ferrari every time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe ended up with a really, really unique design, and what we need is a more generic design,\u201d he said. \u201cSo we\u2019re striving to try to go back to generic designs wherever we can.\u201d<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A rendering of Intuitive Machines\u2019 Nova-C lander on the surface of the Moon.<\/p>\n

Credit:
\n Intuitive Machines<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

A vibrant lunar economy will hinge on finding commercial customers for the lunar lander builders, not just NASA. Some of the CLPS providers are thinking outside of the box to achieve this goal. Intuitive Machines has partnered with Columbia Sportswear to fly the clothier\u2019s trademark thermal-reflective liner on the Nova-C lander set for launch next month.<\/p>\n

Dan Hendrickson, Astrobotic\u2019s vice president of business development, said the jury is still out on whether the CLPS initiative is ultimately successful.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to actually land,\u201d he said. \u201cWe need to prove that we can offer these payload services. I\u2019m not surprised that I don\u2019t have 150 different (scientists) looking to do missions beating down my door right now, but if we land I think our phone is going to ring off the hook.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there\u2019s a big burden of proof that we all have to meet with our first landings, and providing payload services, not just landings, also providing services to actually accomplish science,\u201d Hendrickson said. \u201cI think, once that happens, it\u2019s going to change the mindset significantly.\u201d<\/p>\n

The CEO of the US subsidiary of ispace, which attempted to land on the Moon in April, shared a similar sentiment with Ars.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think what the market needs right now is it needs a proof of concept,\u201d said Ron Garan, CEO of ispace US, which is a partner with Draper on the CLPS program. \u201cWe\u2019re rooting for the success of all the CLPS providers because the more we can demonstrate that this is feasible, that we can actually take payloads to the lunar surface, the more that\u2019s going to enable commercial investment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way that these business cases close is to add on to the CLPS missions with commercial payloads, and we need these successes to spark that demand. There is demand out there, but the demand is kind of patiently sitting back and watching because these missions are very, very expensive,\u201d he said. \u201cSo companies, before they make that investment, want to feel confident that there\u2019s a good path to get there, and that has not, to date, been demonstrated.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Within a few months, NASA may celebrate the first successful landing of an American spacecraft on the Moon in more than 50 years. This would be an immense confidence boost for commercial startups with an eye on the nascent market for lunar missions. It would also signal to NASA that it can rely on commercial […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45859,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[697,322,503,625,190],"class_list":["post-45858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-astrobotic","tag-clps","tag-intuitive-machines","tag-moon","tag-nasa"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45858"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45858\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}