NASA Is Looking For An Additional HLS Option
Not long ago NASA chose SpaceX and awarded the company $2.9 billion for the development and creation of a lunar Starship. This was a part of the agency’s HLS competition with SpaceX, Dynetics, and Blue Origin. However recent news reveals that NASA not only wants SpaceX, but another American company to help transfer astronauts to the surface of the Moon apart of Artemis.
Yesterday on the 23rd, NASA announced plans to create additional opportunities for commercial companies to develop an astronaut Moon lander. Specifically, NASA is asking American companies to propose lander concepts capable of ferrying astronauts between lunar orbit and the lunar surface for missions beyond Artemis III, which will land the first astronauts on the Moon in more than 50 years. This is big news as NASA makes big steps towards the first SLS launch and more.
We have seen NASA work with different commercial companies a lot in recent years. As more companies within the United States and beyond get bigger and offer greater services, NASA sees a great opportunity for help and more. In a lot of these scenarios, NASA provides funding and the commercial companies provide a service. Here I will go more in-depth into this most recent announcement and what it means for the future of Artemis and humans on the Moon.
Recent Announcement
With significant progress developing on multiple aspects of future Artemis missions, NASA is hard at work not only on launch vehicles such as SLS but also the commercial market. This includes the lunar landers working to transfer humans to and from the surface of the Moon. Yesterday NASA tweeted saying, “Artemis III astronauts will touch down on the Moon aboard a @SpaceX Starship Human Landing System. We will be asking U.S. companies to develop astronaut Moon landers for @NASAArtemis missions beyond #Artemis III” This tweet acknowledges SpaceX’s part in future missions along with NASA’s plan for additional landers for future Artemis missions. The agency went on to highlight some key information related to this announcement. Built and operated according to NASA’s long-term requirements at the Moon, new landers will have the capability to dock to a lunar orbiting space station known as Gateway, increase crew capacity, and transport more science and technology to the surface.
“Under Artemis, NASA will carry out a series of groundbreaking missions on and around the Moon to prepare for the next giant leap for humanity: a crewed mission to Mars,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “Competition is critical to our success on the lunar surface and beyond, ensuring we have the capability to carry out a cadence of missions over the next decade.” NASA’s plans call for long-term lunar exploration and setting up a more permanent human presence. The agency is pursuing two parallel paths for continuing lunar lander development and demonstration, one that calls for additional work under an existing contract with SpaceX, and another open to all other U.S. companies to provide a new landing demonstration mission from lunar orbit to the surface of the Moon. Not long ago, in April 2021, NASA selected SpaceX as its partner to land the next American astronauts on the lunar surface. That demonstration mission is targeted for no earlier than April 2025. Exercising an option under the original award, NASA now is asking SpaceX to transform the company’s proposed human landing system into a spacecraft that meets the agency’s requirements for recurring services for a second demonstration mission. Pursuing more development work under the original contract maximizes NASA’s investment and partnership with SpaceX.
To bring a second entrant to market for the development of a lunar lander in parallel with SpaceX, NASA will issue a draft solicitation in the coming weeks. This upcoming activity will lay out requirements for a future development and demonstration lunar landing capability to take astronauts between orbit and the surface of the Moon. This effort is meant to maximize NASA’s support for competition and provides redundancy in services to help ensure NASA’s ability to transport astronauts to the lunar surface. This upcoming second contract award, known as the Sustaining Lunar Development contract, combined with the second option under SpaceX’s original landing award, will pave the way to future recurring lunar transportation services for astronauts at the Moon. NASA has already awarded SpaceX nearly $3 billion and are trying to make the best use of this investment along with additional lunar lander options for future Artemis missions. “This strategy expedites progress toward a long-term, sustaining lander capability as early as the 2026 or 2027 timeframe,” said Lisa Watson-Morgan, program manager for the Human Landing System Program at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. “We expect to have two companies safely carry astronauts in their landers to the surface of the Moon under NASA’s guidance before we ask for services, which could result in multiple experienced providers in the market.” After the new draft solicitation is published, NASA will host a virtual industry day. After comments and questions from the draft solicitation process have been reviewed, the agency plans by to issue the formal request for proposals this summer. The agency finished its announcement by highlighting that, astronaut Moon landers are a vital part of NASA’s deep space exploration plans, along with the Space Launch System rocket, Orion spacecraft, ground systems, and Gateway. NASA is committed to using a commercial astronaut lunar lander to carry the astronauts to the surface of the Moon, expanding exploration and preparing humanity for the next giant leap, human exploration of Mars.
A lot of this information comes back to the original HLS decision and NASA’s funding over time. The initial goal of HLS and NASA’s general plans for Artemis was selecting not one but multiple lunar lander options for future missions. They wanted multiple options to not only encourage competition between the companies but also have additional options in place. With only one company awarded money, if something were to go wrong or large delays became a problem, it would have an effect on the majority of future Artemis missions. However, this ended up not being the case as NASA did not have the proper funding for multiple options. The agency decided to just pick SpaceX as the sole provider of a Human Landing System for future missions. This changed in late 2021 when NASA received additional funding and was encouraged to choose an additional option for the Moon and Artemis. While the extra funding received was not very significant, it gave NASA the confidence that the government was in strong support of having not just one Human Landing System.
Conclusion
While it has been a long time since humans stepped foot on the Moon, we are getting closer and closer each day apart of Artemis. Not long ago NASA choose SpaceX as the best option for HLS and awarded the company $2.9 billion. While NASA was confident with the choice, they knew that having more than one option for HLS would be ideal. Just yesterday the agency announced that they were looking for another Human Landing System for missions past Artemis III. This is a big deal and very promising news for the future of the Moon and Artemis. We will have to wait and see who NASA picks and the impact it has on the space industry.