Blue Origin and its “National Team” partners Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Draper have delivered their full scale lunar lander mock-up to NASA. The space agency will use the engineering prototype to simulate how it could get “crew, equipment, supplies and samples off and on the vehicle” in future moon missions, according to the press release.

While not a full prototype, the 40-foot-high mock-up does include the descent element based on Blue Origin’s Blue Moon cargo lander and BE-7 LOX/hydrogen engine. It also carries the ascent element developed by Lockheed Martin, including avionics, software, life support hardware and crew interfaces. Some of that tech is from Lockheed Martin’s human-rated, deep-space Orion vehicle that’s supposed to fly on NASA’s Artemis I and II moon test missions.

Politicians are seizing on Crew Dragon fervor to offer more incentives for private spaceflight. A group of US senators including Marco Rubio, Dianne Feinstein and Ted Cruz have put forward the American Space Commerce Act, a bill that would expand perks for companies like SpaceX. It would extend depreciation-related tax deductions by another 10 years to the start of 2033, and would make clear that incentives should go to spacecraft either launched from or “substantially manufactured” in the US.

There’s a House version of the bill (HR 6783). Not surprisingly, the bill has the backing of the companies it’s most likely to affect, including SpaceX, Blue Origin, Boeing and United Launch Alliance.

The nose cone (fairing) for the New Glenn rocket is enormous to say the least — in fact, it’s big enough to swallow the entire New Shepherd rocket. As such, it’s “sized to fit almost 50 percent more [payload volume] than the next competitor,” said New Glenn VP Jarrett Jones. “At seven meters [23 feet] across, this is the largest contiguous composite fairing ever built.”

Because the nose cone is so large, Blue Origin customers will be able to design new types of payloads. That includes larger satellites in the commercial, civil and national security categories, all of which can be launched with the same rocket.

Blue Origin also showed off the upper stage BE-3U engines being tested at its facility in west Texas. It noted that it uses an “expander cycle” design that’s simpler than other engines because the heat that drives the turbines is also generated from the main combustion chamber. The company hasfinished its “critical design review” of the engine and is now building the hardware.

Blue Origin has successfully tested the main- and second-stage BE-4 engines for the rocket, though first flight is still a long ways off. New Glenn will land its first stage on a barge and the ground much like SpaceX’s Falcon rockets, but will supposedly use aerodynamic surfaces that negate the need for a re-entry burn.

The plan is to compete with SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy for major launch contracts. Eventually, New Origin will build an even bigger rocket, the New Armstrong, to compete with the SpaceX Starship and NASA’s beleaguered Space Launch System (SLS).

One of NASA’s chosen companies is SpaceX, which will work on advancing its technology to land large rockets vertically on the moon with the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Elon Musk’s company is also teaming up with NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland and Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama to refine its technology needed to transfer propellant in orbit, which is necessary for the development of its Starship vehicle.

Blue Origin, on the other hand, will be collaborating with NASA’s Johnson Space Center on a navigation and guidance system that will enable precise landing at various locations on the moon. It will also work with Glenn and Johnson on a fuel cell system for its Blue Moon lunar lander, which could provide the vehicle with power for two weeks. Finally, NASA will help Blue Origin develop high-temperature materials for liquid rocket engine nozzles that could be used on lunar landers.

The other projects NASA will help develop include a compact hydrogen generator for heat shields (by Anasphere from Montana) that could enable the agency to deliver larger payloads to Mars. It’s also helping Lockheed Martin create autonomous in-space plant growth systems, so future spacefarers can grow and harvest food in deep space.

In addition to revealing the new partnerships, NASA has also announced a call for more projects under its Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. For this round, it’s specifically looking for technologies that will allow lunar landers to carry heavier payloads to the surface of the moon. We need to carry a lot of instruments and supplies to Earth’s faithful companion, after all, if we’re to fully explore it.

Bound for the Moon: Apollo 11 preparation in photos
Alan Taylor,
The Atlantic

Sure, this more Recommended Looking, but this photo essay is a fascinating look at the process of prepping Apollo 11 for its historic mission.

‘We did the impossible’: What it was like inside Apollo 11’s Mission Control
Ashley Strickland,
CNN

A look inside Mission Control during the Apollo 11 moon landing? Yeah, you’ll want to read this one.

The firm also pointed to other criteria that it thought should have put it out front, including its ability to lower costs and offer vehicles that are “commercially viable.” Rivals, SpaceX argued, would have to “rely exclusively” on government contracts and thus drain taxpayer money. ULA was even going to rely on Russian rocket motors, defeating the government’s goal of reducing dependence on Russian hardware. SpaceX further noted that Blue Origin and Northrop delayed their development schedules soon after winning their contracts, negating promises they made when they were vying for the Air Force’s money.

On top of this, SpaceX said that it tried to dispute the awards through a neutral resolution process, but that the Air Force refused and provided only a vague, summarized rejection of the company’s arguments. On top of this, the lawsuit accused officials of switching the criteria for the contract without giving SpaceX or others to respond.

If successful, the lawsuit would require the Air Force to halt investment, reevaluate the offers and potentially “make a new award decision” based on new terms.

In a statement, a SpaceX spokesperson told Engadget the company was fine with the Air Force continuing with the second phase of its rocket procurement process “as currently planned,” but “respecfully disagrees” with the initial choice. The private spaceflight outfit was filing the lawsuit to “ensure a level playing field for competition,” according to the spokesperson.

It’s difficult to say if SpaceX’s suit will succeed. While the lawsuit shows some reasons to believe SpaceX was the victim of an unfair process, critics might characterize the lawsuit as sour grapes — it’s mad that it lost out and wants to prevent its competitors from gaining the upper hand. The Air Force isn’t likely to be receptive given that it already tossed out SpaceX’s earlier pleas. Whoever’s telling the truth, you can be sure that SpaceX will fight hard. Government contracts are a large part of its business, and losing even some of them could significantly hurt its bottom line.

The agency is hoping the initiative could lead to the development of a human landing system that includes a transfer vehicle astronauts can use from its proposed orbital moon base called the Gateway to low-lunar orbit. In addition, the lander must also have a descent element that can carry the astronauts to the lunar surface and an ascent element that can ferry them back up to the Gateway. Finally, NASA wants the lander and its components to have refueling abilities to make them reusable.

Some of the participants will work on all those elements, while others will only work on one or two. SpaceX, for instance, is only conducting one study on the descent element. Blue Origin, on the other hand, will conduct a descent element study, a transfer vehicle study and will also build a transfer vehicle prototype.

A few days ago, the administration has submitted an amendment to the fiscal 2020 budget that would add another $1.6 billion to the $10.7 billion budget set aside to take the first woman and the next man to the moon by 2024. Called the Artemis exploration project, the mission is meant to carry American astronauts to the moon’s south pole in five years’ time and to establish our presence on Earth’s natural satellite by 2028.

Blue Origin says the cargo variant it has just revealed can carry 3.6 metric tons to its destination. It’s also working on another variant that’s capable of carrying a “6.5-metric-ton, human-rated ascent stage.” While Bezos didn’t mention particular dates, the company believes it can meet the government’s goal of putting Americans back on the moon by 2024.

The Blue Moon initiative seeks to build infrastructure on the surface of Earth’s natural satellite to the point that entrepreneurs can start building space businesses. Bezos talked about the possibility of harnessing resources there for energy back home, since ours are bound to run out in the future. In addition, he said the moon is a good place for manufacturing, since it will take 24 times less energy to haul materials from its surface compared to the Earth due to its lower gravity.

A couple of years ago, when Bezos first teased the project, he said it would start by sending a couple of tons of cargo to the moon to build a lunar base — it sounds like that’s still what the company intends to do. “It’s time to go back to the moon, this time to stay,” he said.

First hotfire will be this summer pic.twitter.com/onGeUNMnOt

— Rachel Crane (@RachCrane) May 9, 2019