The Three Lunamigos | TMRO News

Hello all and welcome to Tomorrow News. This week, Ryan and I will be going over NASA's human landing system contracts and also I'm going to have a quick spaceflight bonanza to wrap up our episode. Now before we get started, of course, just want to remind you that if you really like us here at Tomorrow, go ahead and hit subscribe, like our videos, set up notifications, whether you want them all or just a few of them, but feel free to set yourself up however you want to support us here at Tomorrow. So, let's go ahead and get started right into it with your Tomorrow News for May 4th, 2020. And Ryan, give them the SpaceX deets. Starship but slightly different and on the moon. Yes, you heard me right. Just a few weeks ago, we were introduced to Dragon XL and now we've got a lunar-optimized Starship vehicle which is going to be used within NASA's Artemis program. Back in 2019, SpaceX said that Starship would be eligible for NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative which, as it says in the name, is to get payloads to the moon. From what I've been able to research, the lunar-optimized variant of Starship is the same size as the normal variant that we have seen being produced in Boca Chica. However, the landing legs look notably different and the fins which were used for re-entry have been chopped off. The main Raptor engines at the bottom of the spacecraft are taken from the normal variant. However, as you can clearly see in this photo, they won't be used for the landing. Instead, these little, and I use little in a relative term since they are the size of a human being, engines are going to be used to land on the lunar service. My bets are going on a layout of something along the lines of this. For cargo, SpaceX will launch the Dragon XL atop a Falcon Heavy from Launch Complex 39A. This will then fly over to the Gateway and supply it with cargo, much similar to the commercial resupply missions to the ISS. Lunar Starship will then launch atop a Super Heavy booster, fly over to the Gateway, but then transport cargo and crew from the Gateway to the lunar surface. SpaceX has said that it will be able to do this several times, so once its flight life is over, it will return to the Earth. SpaceX have also said that Lunar Starship can survive without flaps or heat shielding required for Earth return, which will put it more in line with a Falcon 9 booster returning to Earth, except Falcon 9 boosters aren't returning from the Moon, which is confusing me. But, it is a win-win for both SpaceX and NASA, as NASA is getting space on what is a sleek and modern vehicle to take their astronauts and cargo to the lunar surface in, and SpaceX are getting funding for Starship. This gives SpaceX 10 months to show significant progress on Starship and Super Heavy, which in my opinion, they already have been showing on SN4 and SN5 down in the south of Texas. The sections of SN5 have been making an appearance over the past few days, and they are being stacked up, creating another Starship vehicle as we speak. A Raptor engine has also been spotted underneath SN4, which means that the static fire and 150 metre hop are not too far away. And just before I end off this week, SpaceX have tested four of what they are dubbing their Mark 3 parachutes. Successfully deploying their droves and then the mains, they slowed down a mass simulator of the Dragon 2 spacecraft with payload on board until it hit the ground at a safe speed. That was a lot of news, and I think that I might need to go and have a rest in a galaxy far, far away. Okay, so for the time being, Jim Feinstein gets to say this. American astronauts on American rockets from American soil. In 23 days time. May the 4th be with you. And you know that new SpaceX contract I was talking about? Well, two other companies have been awarded that contract, which Jared is now going to talk to you about. Thanks Ryan. Our two other landers see a consortium of large aerospace companies coming together in order to make one hell of a technically impressive lander, and the other actually comes from a company that, very embarrassingly, I didn't know about until the contract was actually given. First up is the Blue Origin National Team. It's no secret Blue Origin is interested in the moon. Announcing a lander, Blue Moon, in 2019, that was kind of a dead giveaway. But it's not just Blue Origin in on this. No, they are bringing a whole bunch of friends to the lunar playground. The lander is presently called the Integrated Lander Vehicle, and it's a three-part system. A transfer stage, a descent stage, and an ascent stage, with all of them drawing on heritage hardware from their respective companies. Now, the transfer stage is being provided by Northrop Grumman and based on their Cygnus cargo vehicle. Blue Origin will be, not surprisingly, providing the descent stage based on Blue Moon, using a liquid hydrogen-liquid oxygen propulsion system. Lockheed Martin will be providing the ascent stage to return back to orbit from the lunar surface, and they're pulling their work from Orion on that. Draper will develop the guidance system and avionics. Now, it can work with either Orion or Solo from Gateway. And the National Lander will be capable of putting roughly 4,500 kilograms of things such as supplies, instruments, or self-loading payload onto the lunar surface. It'll be capable of being launched on Blue Origin's New Glenn launch vehicle and United Launch Alliance's upcoming Vulcan launch vehicle. If you're like me, you probably didn't know who Dynetics was before this contract was handed out, but they are a defense company and they are involved in aerospace and on NASA's Space Launch System, the Orion capsule, and the International Space Station. Their proposal is certainly the simplest of the three, called the Dynetics Human Landing System. It's one single element providing the descent and ascent capabilities. Because of this, the vehicle as a whole is reusable, so upon return, it can be refueled and sent to the surface again. It too can work with an Orion spacecraft or Solo from Gateway. And it's designed to carry two humans and their supplies and equipment to the surface for a week and then return, but it can also be used to ferry four astronauts at a time. Sierra Nevada Corporation is one of their major partners, so once again, a lot of flight-proven names and hardware is in the mix, and it's launcher agnostic, meaning you can stick it on Space Launch System, a Falcon Heavy, a New Glenn, a Vulcan. If it can get it to the moon, it can launch on it. With the inclusion of SpaceX's Lunar Starship, we have got a trio of very highly motivated companies aimed squarely at doing something that they have a bit of experience at doing. So it's looking like NASA taking the commercial crew model and applying it to lunar exploration is going to be a huge, huge win. And I really do hope that all three of them get to go through it, that there's no down select. Here at Tomorrow, our overarching philosophy on spaceflight and the companies involved in it is that all ships rise with the tide. If one of us does good, everybody does good, and that is so, so important. So here's to everybody involved in this program doing absolutely fantastic. I can't wait to see them all knock it out of the park. Now if you thought that this lunar contract was really the only thing that happened in spaceflight in the past week, I can understand and I can forgive you for that because it was a bit of a big thing. But there were a lot of little itty bitty stories, and some of those itty bitty stories are actually pretty big for who they're relevant to. So let's go ahead and jump right into a Jared Spaceflight Bonanza Yeehaw, if you can figure out a better name to call it, go ahead and put it down in the comments. There were no launches this past week, but there was an unpowered test flight of Virgin Galactic's Spaceship Two VSS Unity. Now you'd think that since they've already flown into space twice, they'd be done with unpowered test flights. But this was done at their new home, Spaceport America in New Mexico. This flight in particular was about getting the crew familiar with working in New Mexico's airspace and flying approach to Spaceport America. Meanwhile, back in Mojave, Virgin Orbit has conducted a successful wet dress rehearsal of Launcher One in preparation for its upcoming first flight. Unlike the test flight of Cosmic Girl a few weeks ago, there was actual liquid oxygen loaded. There will be several more wet dress rehearsals progressing further into the preparation of Launcher One for flight to assure that procedures are correct, and boy am I looking forward to that first flight of Launcher One. And we've got just a bunch of firsts this week, because over at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport in Virginia, Rocket Lab rolled out an Electron booster to their new Launch Complex Two facility for the first time. Electron was put into the vertical, fluid, power, and comm systems were activated and refined, and a hot ignition test firing the first stage's Rutherford engines topped it off. What's in the name? Well, a bit is in the name. The Mars 2020 helicopter, which will be heading off to Mars with the Perseverance rover this July, finally has one. Ingenuity. Vanessa Rupani, an 11th grader from Northport, Alabama, submitted the name in an essay. Ingenuity represents the most remarkable things that humanity is capable of. It encompasses creativity, discovery, intelligence, and advanced thinking. These are the characteristics that define and enable human progress. They are the qualities that allow us to accomplish feats such as landing men on the moon or sending a rover to Mars. These achievements are not just the product of pure determination. They're a combination of human perseverance and ingenuity. The spirit and curiosity of people gave us a reason to do something as incredible as go to the Red Planet, but ingenuity is what made that journey possible. The ingenuity and brilliance of people working hard to overcome the challenges of interplanetary travel will allow us all to experience the wonders of space exploration. Ingenuity is what allows people to accomplish amazing things, and it allows us to expand our horizons to the edges of the universe. And one final thing that's getting the name this week, the first Dream Chaser spacecraft from Sierra Nevada Corporation. Everyone, meet Tenacity. Set to be the first orbital vehicle, it will provide delivery and disposal capabilities under NASA's Commercial Resupply Services II contract to the International Space Station. I absolutely love that a lifting body is back in the mix, and I sure am hoping that even though it won't have windows like crewed Dream Chaser, that they'll still stick some fuzzy dice somewhere inside of it. As we wrap up this week's Tomorrow News, I'd like to thank all of you who support us here at Tomorrow. We really can't do this without you, and each and every one of you who does so, you are absolutely amazing, and your support is greatly appreciated. Now if you'd like to help contribute to the shows of Tomorrow, you can head on over to youtube.com slash T-M-R-O slash join, and you can do so, you can check out all the great rewards that we have available to you at your different levels of support. Like our Discord channel, like at Escape Velocity level, you can actually see our thumbnails, you can even vote as to which thumbnail you want to have up here, and a whole bunch of other things that, you know, we probably shouldn't talk about on air, but you can see it there if you go there. And of course, watching our shows, liking, subscribing, and setting up notifications, sharing us everywhere you can, that all is an incredible help as well. And that's Nico for this edition of Tomorrow News, thank you so much for watching this week. Until the next one, remember, stay safe, keep healthy, keep exploring, and may the Force be with you, always. This is looking like an all-star trio to get humans back to, thank you.