NASA Picks SpaceX To Fly Cargo To Moon-Orbiting Gateway Space Station

NASA has awarded SpaceX with a contract to supply Gateway, the moon-orbiting space station that the agency aims to start building in 2022, agency officials announced Friday. Space.com reports: Gateway is a key part of NASA's Artemis exploration program, which seeks to establish a sustainable, long-term human presence on and around the moon by the late 2020s. The small space station will serve as a jumping-off point for sorties, both crewed and uncrewed, to the lunar surface. SpaceX will help to keep the Gateway supplied, delivering scientific experiments and a variety of other gear to the outpost, NASA officials said. The company is guaranteed two missions under its newly announced Gateway Logistics Services contract.

SpaceX's robotic ISS resupply runs employ the company's Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule, which can loft 13,200 lbs. (6,000 kilograms, or 6 metric tons) to low-Earth orbit. But SpaceX's Gateway missions will use different hardware: the huge Falcon Heavy rocket and a special capsule variant called Dragon XL. (SpaceX has also developed another Dragon version, Crew Dragon, which will fly astronauts to and from the ISS under yet another NASA contract.) Dragon XL will be able to carry more than 5 metric tons of cargo to the Gateway, SpaceX representatives said via Twitter Friday. Dragon cargo missions to the ISS typically last about a month from launch to splashdown. But Dragon XL will likely stay attached to the Gateway for six to 12 months at a time, NASA officials said. Other companies may end up joining SpaceX in the Gateway resupply game.

Boeing

[backslashdot]

Boeing must have defaulted on their congresscritters salaries.

Re:

[Dunbal]

Boeing is busy trying to beg $60 billion dollars off the taxpayers. Why should you even bother making stuff anymore if you can just get the money for free.

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[gweihir]

Well, Boeing is in that game of promising to help to kill lots of people (intentionally). In a certain type of deranged evil human being that also craves power, this causes excessive wet dreams and a desire to throw money at them. And that is the only thing that keeps Boeing alive at this time.

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[Dereck1701]

I think even their backers in Congress are having to re-evaluate their relationship with Boeing. After the whole 737 max debacle, issues with the KC-46 and the ballooning costs of the SLS it's becoming evermore difficult to do business with Boeing and not come out of it in bad shape. Hopefully with increased competition they'll either have to step up to the plate or vanish into obscurity (probably kicking, screaming and lobbying the whole way).

The Lunar Gateway is off the critical path

[Required Snark]

NASA takes Gateway off the critical path for 2024 lunar return [spacenews.com]

A revised plan for returning astronauts to the surface of the moon by 2024 will no longer rely on the use of a lunar Gateway, although NASA’s human spaceflight head says the agency is still committed to eventually developing it.

In a conversation with the NASA Advisory Council’s science committee March 13, Doug Loverro, NASA associate administrator for human exploration and operations, said he had been working to “de-risk” the Artemis program to focus primarily on the mandatory activities needed to achieve the 2024 landing goal.

Talking Heads: Road to Nowhere. [youtube.com]

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[michelcolman]

By the time Gateway is operational, SpaceX will be able to supply it from the moon.

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[Kjella]

Translation from diplomat-speech to reality: The Lunar Gateway will no longer be a gateway. But even though it's lost the core reason for its existence, we're still mandated by Congress to build it. So we will make it the kind of low-priority ticket that's technically not canceled but will also never get done. The 2024 moon mission date is just an artificial target towards the end of the next presidential term, so it'll probably be more like late 2020s while the "gateway" is pushed off the table.

I'm sure th

Gateway Station

[93 Escort Wagon]

Will it be painted like a cow, I wonder?

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[Dunbal]

There's an entire generation that simply won't understand your joke. But yeah, I 'member :)

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

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[Dunbal]

Never had a Gateway, we went with CompuAdd. They were a bit cheaper and made very decent 80386's :)

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[93 Escort Wagon]

There's an entire generation that simply won't understand your joke. But yeah, I 'member :)

Heck, there are a lot of people here who don't even get my Futurama references, which makes me sad.

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[hey!]

Or offer trips to unknown interstellar destinations [wikipedia.org]?

Why?

[AndyKron]

Why are we going to the Moon again?

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[PolygamousRanchKid]

Why are we going to the Moon again?

You don't know what you're missing there: Nude on the Moon [wikipedia.org]

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[gweihir]

Why are we going to the Moon again?

Is this a serious question?

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[k6mfw]

Why are we going to the Moon again?

Is this a serious question?

It definitely is and has been for quite some time. Especially now with Covid-19 are seriously asking why. Back in Apollo we had to beat the Reds to the moon. Nowadays the reason can't be answered that brief. There are reasons for but it takes some explaining. Right now debate is how to do it, and what is sustainable or not. Of course the big elephant in the room is who will pay for it?

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[gweihir]

Ah, I see. Now, it is not very urgent to get to the Moon, but if we want to eventually be a system-wide presence, some permanent installation on or orbiting the Moon is the next step. Whether that gets established in 10 years or 30 years is not critical though and 2022 (the NASA target, I believe) is of no real importance.

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[LostMyBeaver]

There are a lot of people who believe that we need to find a means to cut a profit on all science in the short term. This is fair. After all, simply reaching for the stars isn't good enough for many people with regards to spending tax money.

But let's think in terms of longer term.

The cost of exiting earth's atmosphere is very expensive. The moon doesn't have one and gravity on the moon is substantially less than on earth. This makes it a fairly big object we can use for launching from. We would need to find

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[k6mfw]

All very good points, in terms of resources I am thinking platinum. Imagine if they were to find considerable amounts on the moon or an asteroid. Or a asteroid that impacted the moon long ago. That will change everything. Then there's the issue of where is the money? Of course as you mentioned we spend plenty on prisons and anti-terrorism.

There was a time not long ago where nobody talked about the moon except very few (Paul Spudis, Dennis Wingo, Homer Hickam). Now the moon is mentioned a lot in space disc

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[Required Snark]

For the same reason we did the first time. It was a competition with the Soviets then, and it is a competition with China now.

It's not a technical decision, it's a political decision. Still, going to the moon the first time was a worthwhile endeavor and going back is worthwhile as well.