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Lunar gold rush (12/8/22)

Author

Ryan Duffy
December 08, 2022

Happy Thursday. Space really doesn’t sleep and it doesn’t take off for the holidays. 

To wit, in the first week of December alone
Artemis I treated us to loads of spectacular space imagery; the Orion spacecraft made its second close flyby of the Moon and is on its way home; and we saw a mind-blowing amount of space deals. And we have a juicy contract report today.

In today's newsletter:🌕 HLS Round Deux📝 The contract report đŸ˜Ž Views from space 

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Who Will Build NASA's Next Lunar Landing System?

A rendering of a NASA astronaut taking the first step on the Moon

Image: NASA

In the latest round of lunar Human Landing Systems (HLS), we have a National Team 2.0—along with another group of bidders—vying to build a second vehicle that would take American astronauts to the Moon.

The big change? Blue and Northrop Grumman have parted ways in their bid. 

How we got here: a brief timeline 

  • In April 2021, NASA awarded SpaceX a $2.9B fixed price contract to develop a human lander system. Blue Origin, which had partnered with primes for a competing HLS system, challenged the award in federal court (and lost in Nov. 2021).

  • In March, NASA said it would solicit and award a second HLS contract in 2023. The new contract, known as Sustaining Lunar Development (SLD), came at the behest of Congress. Lawmakers had called for two lunar landing programs, citing the need for more redundancy and competition. 

  • In November, NASA announced a $1.15B contract modification to SpaceX for a second crewed landing demo mission in 2027 with Starship. The landing will be a part of NASA’s Artemis IV mission. 

  • Bidding for the SLD contract in question closed on Tuesday (Dec. 6). 

NASA HLS procurement path

Image: NASA

The competitors

Blue Origin’s “National Team” consists of Lockheed Martin ($LMT), Draper, Boeing ($BA), Astrobotic, and Honeybee Robotics. In its new website, Blue emphasizes that the team’s network of partners and suppliers have a footprint across 48 states (Nebraska and North Dakota were the only two to not make the cut). 

Leidos ($LDOS) subsidiary Dynetics partnered with Northrop ($NOC) on a second, competing bid. Notably, Dynetics also competed for the first HLS contract. The Leidos-led team has a unique take on the lander, with a low-set base and vertical solar arrays. See the latest concept below:  

Human landing system render from Leidos Dynetics team

Image: Leidos Dynetics

Northrop, meanwhile, brings pedigree to the table. It’s the only firm to successfully build a human lander. Back in the ’60s, Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corp. built all of the Apollo lander modules (Northrop and Grumman merged in 1994). 

What’s next? Now, we wait and see. The winner will presumably fly a demo mission on Artemis V in the back half of this decade (or in the early 2030s) and will be eligible to compete for future Moon landing missions. 

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In Other News

  • Aerojet Rocketdyne ($AJRD) is struggling to deliver rocket motors to Raytheon ($RTX), the latter’s chief executive tells Defense One. 

  • LeoLabs completed construction of its west Australia space radar site. The startup also just rebranded and shared a fascinating inside look into how it reconceived its visual identity. 

  • NASA lost contact with ICON, an atmospheric monitoring satellite in Earth orbit, on Nov. 25. The agency has not reestablished contact and the spacecraft is sadly not responding to commands.

  • Elon owns 42.2% of SpaceX’s outstanding stock (h/t CNBC’s Michael Sheetz). 

  • China is mulling an expansion of the Tiangong space station. It may add a new core module, SpaceNews reports. 

  • SpaceX has sent Booster 7 back to the factory after several tests.

The Contract Report

  • The US Navy added Stratolaunch to its Multiservice Advanced Capability Test Bed (MACH-TB) contract. The hypersonics company will join the Dynetics-led team working on MACH-TB capabilities. 

  • Hanwha Aerospace, the A&D subsidiary of a South Korean conglomerate, secured a contract worth ₩286B ($212M) to build three rockets for the country’s space program. 

  • Momentus ($MNTS) signed a contract with South Korea's CONTEC to provide space transportation services for the JINJUSat-1 cubesat.

  • Eutelsat (PAR:ETL) selected Thales Alenia Space to build a next-generation highly flexible, software-defined satellite (SDS).

  • Vocus, an Australian fiber and network solutions provider, signed an agreement with SpaceX to offer Starlink services to enterprise and government customers.

  • NOAA’s OSC and the DoD awarded space traffic coordination pilot project contracts to COMSPOC, ExoAnalytic Solutions, Kayhan, KBR, NorthStar Earth & Space, Slingshot, and the Space Data Association.

  • Outpost won a NASA Phase 1 SBIR Ignite contract to develop Ferry to deliver cargo from the ISS back to Earth.

  • SpiderOak joined forces with TriSept to tackle the growing cyber threat in LEO by developing end-to-end security systems for space missions.

  • Redwire ($RDW) teamed up with BigBear.ai ($BBAI) to develop the SpaceCREST cybersecurity platform, to be used by Mynaric ($MYNA) for a DARPA program.

  • Astroscale Japan and JAXA have kicked off a satellite refueling service concept. “The mission concept will be for providing refueling service on orbit to satellites that are both prepared and unprepared to be refueled,” Astroscale notes. 

  • ESA bought rides from Arianespace for five Copernicus Sentinels.

The Views from Space

Rotating carousel of satellite images of Rome; somewhere in the Arctic; and the Manam island volcano in Papua New Guinea.

Image: SkyFi

The three satellite images you see are Rome; somewhere in the Arctic; and the Manam island volcano in Papua New Guinea. 

We pulled these images from SkyFi’s platform, where Ryan is a beta tester. The startup put out a call for the final wave of private beta testers. If interested, sign up here to gain access to the platform, offer feedback, and discover what it’s like ordering satellite imagery directly from your phone. 

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