Tag: Artemis

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NASA picks three teams to work on lunar terrain vehicle

An artist's conception shows NASA's generic concept for the Lunar Terrain Vehicle. (NASA Illustration)

Some of the biggest names in aerospace — and the automotive industry — will play roles in putting NASA astronauts in the driver’s seat for roving around on the moon.

The space agency today selected three teams to develop the capabilities for a lunar terrain vehicle, or LTV, which astronauts could use during Artemis missions to the moon starting with Artemis 5. That mission is currently scheduled for 2029, three years after the projected date for Artemis’ first crewed lunar landing.

The teams’ leading companies may not yet be household names outside the space community: Intuitive Machines, Lunar Outpost and Venturi Astrolab. But each of those ventures has more established companies as their teammates.

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Blue Origin targets 2025 for its first moon landing

An artist’s conception shows Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Mark 1 lander on the moon. (Blue Origin Illustration)

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture is aiming to send an uncrewed lander to the surface of the moon in the next 12 to 16 months, according to the executive in charge of the development program.

John Couluris, senior vice president for lunar permanence at Blue Origin, provided an update on the company’s moon lander program on CBS’ “60 Minutes” news program on March 3.

“We’re expecting to land on the moon between 12 and 16 months from today,” Couluris said. “I understand I’m saying that publicly, but that’s what our team is aiming towards.”

Couluris was referring to a pathfinder version of Blue Origin’s nearly three-story-tall Blue Moon Mark 1 cargo lander, which is taking shape at Blue Origin’s production facility in Huntsville, Ala. The Pathfinder Mission would demonstrate the MK1’s capabilities — including its hydrogen-fueled BE-7 engine, its precision landing system and its ability to deliver up to 3 tons of payload anywhere on the moon.

Blue Origin envisions building multiple cargo landers, as well as a crewed version of the Blue Moon lander that could transport NASA astronauts to and from the lunar surface.

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Cosmic Space

NASA reschedules Artemis moon landing for 2026

Artemis 2 crew members check out their Orion spacecraft during testing at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. (NASA Photo / Kim Shiflett)

NASA has added another year’s delay to its plan for landing astronauts on the moon: The Artemis 2 trip around the moon is now scheduled for 2025, setting the stage for an Artemis 3 mission in 2026 that would see humans step onto lunar surface for the first time in 54 years.

The reasons behind the postponement have to do with safety concerns that arose in the wake of the uncrewed Artemis 1 round-the-moon mission in 2022. That flight was seen as a shakedown cruise for NASA’s Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft.

When NASA and its industry partners analyzed the results of Artemis 1, they found several issues that required more time to resolve — including higher-than-expected levels of erosion in Orion’s heat shield, deficiencies in the battery and electrical system, and problems with some of the components used in Orion’s life support system.

“Safety is our top priority,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said today in a teleconference. “And to give Artemis teams more time to work through the challenges with first-time developments, operations and integration, we’re going to give more time on Artemis 2 and 3.”

Artemis 2 is now due to send three Americans and a Canadian astronaut on a 10-day trip around the moon in an Orion capsule in September 2025 rather than late 2024.

The Artemis 3 mission, which would use Orion as well as a modified SpaceX Starship lander to put a yet-to-be-named crew of astronauts on the moon’s surface near the south pole, is now scheduled for September 2026 rather than late 2025.

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Jeff Bezos and NASA’s chief share a peek at lunar lander

Jeff Bezos and NASA Administrator Bill Nelson chat in front of a mockup of Blue Origin’s lunar lander. (Blue Origin via Bill Nelson / X / Twitter)

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture and NASA Administrator Bill Nelson today provided a look at coming attractions in the form of a social-media glimpse at Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lunar lander, festooned with a golden feather logo.

In a series of posts to X / Twitter and Instagram, Bezos and Nelson showed off a mockup of the nearly three-story-tall Blue Moon MK1 cargo lander, which is taking shape at Blue Origin’s production facility in Huntsville, Ala.

“MK1’s early missions will pave the way and prove technologies for our MK2 lander for @nasa’s Human Landing System,” Bezos said on Instagram. He also recapped a few technical details — noting that the MK1 is designed to deliver up to 3 tons of cargo to anywhere on the moon’s surface, and that it’ll fit in the 7-meter fairing of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket. New Glenn is slated for its first launch next year.

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NASA backs Blue Origin plan to make solar cells on moon

Blue Origin says coin-sized solar cells like this one could be made from lunar material. (Blue Origin Photo)

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture has won $34.7 million in funding from NASA to support the development of a system for producing solar cells on the moon from materials that are available on site.

The Blue Alchemist project is one of 11 proposals winning support from the space agency’s Tipping Point program, which partners with commercial ventures to back technologies that could contribute to long-term space exploration.

“Harnessing the vast resources in space to benefit Earth is part of our mission, and we’re inspired and humbled to receive this investment from NASA to advance our innovation,” Pat Remias, vice president for Blue Origin’s Capabilities Directorate, Space Systems Development, said today in a news release. “First we return humans to the moon, then we start to ‘live off the land.’”

Blue Alchemist would use lunar regolith — the dust and crushed rock that covers the moon’s surface — as the raw material for solar cells and electrical transmission wire. Oxygen, iron, silicon and aluminum would be extracted through a process known as molten regolith electrolysis, and fed into the manufacturing process. The oxygen could be used for life support or for rocket propulsion.

Kent, Wash.-based Blue Origin has been working on the technology over the past couple of years, with Earth-produced simulants taking the place of lunar regolith.

Blue Origin is also on the team for another Tipping Point project, led by Washington, D.C.-based Zeno Power Systems. Zeno was awarded $15 million for Project Harmonia, which aims to create a new type of radioisotope power supply for the Artemis moon program that uses americium-241 as fuel.

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Blue Origin’s team wins $3.4B from NASA for lunar lander

An artist’s conception shows the integrated design for the Blue Moon lander. (Blue Origin Illustration)

An industry team led by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture has won a $3.4 billion NASA contract to provide a second type of landing system for crewed as well as uncrewed lunar landings.

The decision announced today settles a years-long controversy over how astronauts would get to the moon’s surface: SpaceX’s Starship system would be used for the first two crewed landings during the Artemis 3 and 4 missions, currently scheduled for as early as 2025 and 2028. Blue Origin’s Blue Moon system would be used for Artemis 5, currently set for 2029.

All those missions would target the moon’s south polar region, which is thought to be one of the moon’s most promising places for long-term settlement. Both types of landers could be available to NASA for missions beyond Artemis 5.

“We are in a golden age of human spaceflight, which is made possible by NASA’s commercial and international partnerships,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said at the agency’s HQ in Washington, D.C. “Together, we are making an investment in the infrastructure that will pave the way to land the first astronauts on Mars.”

In a tweet, Bezos said he was “honored to be on this journey with NASA to land astronauts on the moon — this time to stay.”

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Aerojet Rocketdyne wins $67M award for Orion thrusters

An artist’s conception shows the Orion spacecraft’s main engine firing during a lunar flyby. (NASA Illustration)

Aerojet Rocketdyne says it’s received a $67 million contract award from Lockheed Martin to provide propulsion systems for the Orion spacecraft that’ll carry astronauts to the moon during three missions planned for the 2030s.

The contract option for NASA’s Artemis 6, 7 and 8 missions follows up on Aerojet’s work on earlier missions in the Artemis program — including the uncrewed Artemis 1 mission that flew around the moon last year, and the history-making Artemis 3 mission that’s due to put a crew on the lunar surface in the mid-2020s.

“We’re proud to be part of a team that has demonstrated the ability to safely and efficiently carry astronauts on future Artemis missions, effectively ushering in an exciting new generation of human spaceflight,” Aerojet Rocketdyne CEO and President Eileen Drake said today in a news release.

Aerojet says the contract will be managed and performed out of the company’s facility in Redmond, Wash. Work will also be conducted at Aerojet facilities in Alabama and Virginia.

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Universe Today

Meet the crew who’ll fly around the moon for Artemis 2

The Artemis 2 crew includes, clockwise from left, Christina Koch, Victor Glover, Jeremy Hansen and Reid Wiseman. (Credit: Josh Valcarcel / NASA)

The four astronauts chosen for NASA’s Artemis 2 mission will check off a string of firsts during their flight around the moon, scheduled for next year. It’ll mark the first trip beyond Earth orbit for a woman, for a person of color and for a Canadian. Artemis 2 will represent yet another first for Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen: Based on the current crew schedule, it’ll be his first-ever space mission.

Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover and mission specialist Christina Koch round out the first crew for NASA’s Artemis moon program, which picks up on the legacy of the Apollo moon program. If all goes according to plan, they’ll be the first humans to circle the moon since Apollo 17 in 1972.

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The year in aerospace: Why 2022 could be Year One

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope focuses on the galaxy NGC 7469. (ESA / Webb, NASA & CSA / L. Armus, A.S. Evans)

A few years from now, we just might look back at 2022 as Year One for a new age in aerospace: It was the year when NASA’s next-generation space telescope delivered the goods, when NASA’s moon rocket aced its first flight test, and when an all-electric passenger plane built from the ground up took to the skies.

I’ve been rounding up the top stories in space on an annual basis for 25 years now (starting with the Mars Pathfinder mission in 1997), and 2022 ranks among the biggest years when it comes to opening up new frontiers on the final frontier. The best thing about these frontier-opening stories — especially the James Webb Space Telescope and the Artemis moon program — is that the best is yet to come.

Check out my top-five list for the big stories of the past year, plus five aerospace trends to watch in the year ahead.

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Orion’s round-the-moon odyssey ends with splashdown

A view from the Orion capsule (at left, foreground) shows Earth in its sights. (NASA / ESA Photo)

NASA’s uncrewed Orion capsule passed its final exam today, surviving a fiery atmospheric re-entry and splashing down in the Pacific Ocean at the end of a round-the-moon test flight.

The 25.5-day Artemis 1 mission set the stage for future moon trips with astronauts aboard, 50 years after the last Apollo moon mission.

“From Tranquility Base to Taurus-Littrow to the tranquil waters of the Pacific, the latest chapter of NASA’s journey to the moon comes to a close,” NASA spokesman Rob Navias said as Orion settled in the waters off the coast of Baja California at 9:40 a.m. PT. “Orion, back on Earth.”

Orion’s odyssey began in mid-November with the first-ever launch of NASA’s giant Space Launch System rocket, and traced a route that came as close as 80 miles to the lunar surface and ranged as far out as 40,000 miles beyond the moon. Orion traveled 1.4 million miles in all.

On the way back to Earth, cameras mounted on the spacecraft’s solar array wings sent back spectacular imagery of our planet looming larger in Orion’s metaphorical windshield. Once the spacecraft jettisoned its European-built service module, a set of thrusters built at Aerojet Rocketdyne’s facility in Redmond, Wash., controlled the capsule’s orientation for atmospheric re-entry.

Mission managers said Orion’s descent ranked among the sternest tests of the mission. As the spacecraft hit the top part of the atmosphere at a velocity of nearly 25,000 mph, Orion’s heat shield had to weather temperatures around 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit. After that trial by fire, parachutes slowed the descent further, allowing the spacecraft to hit the ocean at about 20 mph.

Navias said it was a “textbook entry.”

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