Blue Origin is targeting a first unmanned landing of its manned lunar lander in 2025
An early visualization of Blue Moon
According to one Blue Origin official, the company is now targeting its first unmanned landing of its manned lunar lander, Blue Moon, for sometime in 2025, far sooner than previously expected.
Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture is aiming to send an uncrewed lander to the surface of the moon in the next 12 to 16 months, according to the executive in charge of the development program. John Couluris, senior vice president for lunar permanence at Blue Origin, provided an update on the company’s moon lander program on CBS’ “60 Minutes” news program on Sunday. “We’re expecting to land on the moon between 12 and 16 months from today,” Couluris said. “I understand I’m saying that publicly, but that’s what our team is aiming towards.”
Blue Moon is shown in the graphic to the right. Though being built to provide NASA a second manned lander in addtion to SpaceX’s Starship, this first mission will simply bring cargo to the surface, as a test of the lander itself.
If Blue Origin can keep even somewhat close to this schedule, we will likely have two manned moon landers doing test flights at almost the same time.
A sidebar: Note the lander’s height, as well as the narrow footprint of its landing legs. New graphics of this lander from Blue Origin show the same high center of gravity with an even narrower footprint for the legs. One wonders why. Wouldn’t it make sense to have those legs deploy outward more?
This issue applies also to SpaceX’s Starship, which will also have a high center of gravity. When SpaceX’s rockets land on Earth (both Falcon 9 boosters and Starship), most of their fuel is gone so the bulk of the mass is near the bottom where the engines are, even though the boosters stand very high. On the Moon however these vehicles will be landing heavily loaded, with cargo and fuel. This raises a stability question that was illustrated sadly by the tipping over recently of Intuitive Machines Odysseus lander.
I am not an engineer, so I admit that my off the cuff analysis here is very questionable. Nonetheless, one wonders.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
An early visualization of Blue Moon
According to one Blue Origin official, the company is now targeting its first unmanned landing of its manned lunar lander, Blue Moon, for sometime in 2025, far sooner than previously expected.
Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture is aiming to send an uncrewed lander to the surface of the moon in the next 12 to 16 months, according to the executive in charge of the development program. John Couluris, senior vice president for lunar permanence at Blue Origin, provided an update on the company’s moon lander program on CBS’ “60 Minutes” news program on Sunday. “We’re expecting to land on the moon between 12 and 16 months from today,” Couluris said. “I understand I’m saying that publicly, but that’s what our team is aiming towards.”
Blue Moon is shown in the graphic to the right. Though being built to provide NASA a second manned lander in addtion to SpaceX’s Starship, this first mission will simply bring cargo to the surface, as a test of the lander itself.
If Blue Origin can keep even somewhat close to this schedule, we will likely have two manned moon landers doing test flights at almost the same time.
A sidebar: Note the lander’s height, as well as the narrow footprint of its landing legs. New graphics of this lander from Blue Origin show the same high center of gravity with an even narrower footprint for the legs. One wonders why. Wouldn’t it make sense to have those legs deploy outward more?
This issue applies also to SpaceX’s Starship, which will also have a high center of gravity. When SpaceX’s rockets land on Earth (both Falcon 9 boosters and Starship), most of their fuel is gone so the bulk of the mass is near the bottom where the engines are, even though the boosters stand very high. On the Moon however these vehicles will be landing heavily loaded, with cargo and fuel. This raises a stability question that was illustrated sadly by the tipping over recently of Intuitive Machines Odysseus lander.
I am not an engineer, so I admit that my off the cuff analysis here is very questionable. Nonetheless, one wonders.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
That high center of gravity bothers me, too. Many of the recent partial successes can attribute the “partial” bit to a high CoG. Of course, a manned lander is going to be landing in a very flat and well-mapped location, and will likely be making sure to come to a complete stop in terms of horizontal vector before landing, so it’s less of a concern.
David Eastman: Though the final landing site for the first manned Artemis mission is not yet chosen, as far as I know all of them are in the Moon’s south pole region, a place that is certainly not very flat. There will be greater risks, because the flat level landing zones will be much smaller than during Apollo.
I will posit that there is a political reason behind this. If Blue Origin can get ahead of SpaceX then there is the possibility that the SpaceX HLS will be canceled. That may be achieved by a more vigorous bureaucratic stalling of Starship than is currently being done with no holds barred for Blue Origin.
Show me the hardware!!
2025? Color me skeptical.
Speaking of high C-Gs, I hope Elon is:
1. Designing some quick-self-leveling landing legs for HLS,
2. Training a neural net to land it.
Because Neil Armstrong won’t be at the controls!
So 2025 in Bezo’s speak is what… 2029?
I think this is a simplified cargo-lander variant that does not require the cis-lunar tug. One and done, no re-use.
SpaceX has had a run of luck after a rocky start.
Let’s see how Jeff deals with a couple of booms while SpaceX launches a couple of times a week.
Man-rating is a very rough road with a lot of hoops (Except for NASA designs of course).
Is the NG designed as man-rated? I can’t recall.
NG won’t be ready to fly people for several years. Too bad the Atlas is going bye bye.
Another related subject:
They should remanifest all the remaining flights to Falcon and save the Atlas for manned flight. We are just one boom away from depending on the Russians again. I know NASA probably would let the ISS die rather than pay the Russians again.
Blue Origin Lunar Lander is going to get there on which launch vehicle. (F9 tail number?)
“… which launch vehicle. (F9 tail number?)”
FH maybe, F9 not enough oomph.
Dynetics always gets the shaft.
Robert wrote: “When SpaceX’s rockets land on Earth (both Falcon 9 boosters and Starship), most of their fuel is gone so the bulk of the mass is near the bottom where the engines are, even though the boosters stand very high.”
A fun exercise is to calculate the center of mass of a can of cola (coke, soda, whatever your local wording) as it is drained. When it is full, the center of mass is in the middle. When it is empty, the center of mass is in the middle. But in between those two conditions, the center of mass is lower than the middle.
Thus, for Falcons and Starship, there is an amount of propellant in the two tanks that minimizes the center of mass.
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Jhon B asked: “So 2025 in Bezo’s speak is what… 2029?”
Sarcasm aside, I think that this suggests that Bezos is finally working toward a quicker pace. Before Bob Smith, Blue Origin was working faster than it did with Smith at the helm. I suspect that, at the very least, it is trying to get back toward rapid development.
Edward: But a soda can doesn’t have engines at its base. I would expect that is a much more important mass than any left over fuel for determining a near empty rocket’s center of gravity.
“Blue Origin was working faster than it did with Smith at the helm. I suspect that, at the very least, it is trying to get back toward rapid development.”
I agree completely – they’d be crazy not to be. But learning how to do rapid development is not something you learn by flipping a switch. And one person, even a charismatic leading one, cannot do it alone.
It takes a long time to recruit the kind of people who instinctively know how to do it, and to find enough of them to make a difference. They aren’t exactly hanging out at the pub… the best are probably saving another company’s butt already – and getting well paid for doing it!
Worse, it also takes a long time to move out the people who never will know how, but whom you need to keep around to keep the lights on, while you try to make such a grand transformation!
Robert,
Yes. If you did the same exercise for a rocket, you would have the mass of the engines on the bottom remain after all propellants were drained, so it would be similar to the case where the can of coke did not drain entirely. In the case of a real Falcon, there is some amount of propellants left in the tanks, one of which is high in the “can,” so the center of mass will also be somewhat different.
During launch, the propellants in the upper stage(s) remain, so the center of mass of the whole rocket tends to move upward, or “noseward,” until stage separation.
____________
Ray Van Dune,
“It takes a long time to recruit the kind of people who instinctively know how to do it, and to find enough of them to make a difference. They aren’t exactly hanging out at the pub… the best are probably saving another company’s butt already – and getting well paid for doing it!”
In the case of Blue Origin, several of their best chose to leave to other companies or to start their own companies. We can expect that very few will go back to Blue Origin, which means the company has to start over with its personnel, and they will have to work hard at changing the corporate culture.
SpaceX, for instance, already had a corporate culture to adapt such philosophies as “the best part is no part” and “If you aren’t adding back at least 10%, then you aren’t removing enough.” Their engines may be exploding because they push them enough to find their actual limits, but they may also be looking for the parts that they need to put back in.
Both of these SpaceX philosophies go against the FAA’s culture, which generally looks for what is needed to add in order to increase safety or reliability. It is why cockpits are so full of gauges, buttons, switches, and changeable displays that it takes a genius to fly the plane. Meanwhile, a car has so few controls and displays that a vast majority of people can operate them. What are the best parts of cars? The ones that are in the airplanes but not in the cars. What are the best parts of airplanes? We will have to see what parts the FAA will allow to be removed.
Edward–
Ref: (as applied to pop cans)
“When it is full, the center of mass is in the middle. When it is empty, the center of mass is in the middle. But in between those two conditions, the center of mass is lower than the middle.”
I’m just a psychology major, but that is very interesting!
Have any video links handy, on the math & physics of center-of-gravity?
Interesting discussion. For comparison, the Apollo LM had a height (to LM roof, discounting antennas) to landing leg width ratio of about 0.67 – that is to say, the landing feet were 31 feet apart compared to a roof height of about 21 ft. The center of mass was about 12 ft off the ground at landing. That is an inherently stable configuration – the center of mass is within the center of rotation of the legs.
Starship and BO’s lander both appear to have center of masses well outside the center of rotation of the legs – inherently unstable.
The Starship is big because of the large payload volume capacity that is required to transport construction materials to the lunar surface or to Mars, to build a permanent base.
But why does it achieve that capacity via increased height more than width, making it “top heavy”? It is clearly the “fineness ratio” required to fly through the Earth’s atmosphere, just like an oceangoing ship must have a length / width ratio suitable to allow efficient travel through water.
Once spaceships can be built in LEO space, lunar travel will allow a less elegant ratio (and require no streamlining), but Mars landings will still impose fineness constraints. Maybe flying saucer shapes for Mars? Wouldn’t that be a hoot?
Wayne:
In the case of the liquid-filled container, it’s a system of two parts, the container, and the liquid. At T=0, the CoG of both are the same. The mass and CoG of the container will not change, no matter what the liquid does. As the liquid is drained, the CoG of the liquid moves toward the local G acceleration, and alters the system CoG, but not that of the container. The instant the liquid masses less than the container, the system CoG will start to move toward the container CoG. Thus, when the liquid is gone, the remaining container and system CoG are the same, just as at the beginning.
Ray Van Dune:
Regarding Armstrong: true that. I can imagine a time when finessing a tricky planetary landing is called “Pulling an Armstrong”, similar to “Doing a Rockford” for a J-turn.
I think that there are going to be regional space ports on the Moon. They will be chosen in areas that are naturally flat and level with natural berms (e.g. small crater). The first landers will discharge to its that will further flatten the landing area by, for example, filling in small craters. Blast resistant tarps or sintering will create a dust-free landing pad. A small the landing pad will help keep the landing legs from tripping over the regolith if they have horizontal velocity. High up engines (e.g. Draco thrusters) can help counter tipping. So yes, high CoG is a risk but a known risk that can be mitigated. Falcon 9 landings appear to have little horizontal landing and so I presume that we can do the same on the Moon.
wayne asked: “Have any video links handy, on the math & physics of center-of-gravity?”
Nothing handy. I would have to do a search, but you can do that with terms that better match what you seek.
Static center of gravity (CG) is fairly simple, but for cases where fuel or propellants are being consumed, such as aircraft, launch vehicles, and spacecraft, it gets more complicated, as the CG is constantly moving. Pilots have to be careful as to how they choose the fuel tanks that they use during a flight, and they may even have to pump fuel between tanks.
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Larry wrote: “Starship and BO’s lander both appear to have center of masses well outside the center of rotation of the legs – inherently unstable.”
Starship is supposed to be able to take around 100 tons of materiel to the surfaces of the Moon and Mars. This mass is above the propellant tanks, so on landing the center of mass is way above the center of the (100-ish ton dry weight) vehicle. Whoa! Starship will need more than just a flat landing place but a level one. Very level. Keep far away from even small craters.
The Apollo Lunar Lander was allowed to land at a 12˚ angle, but this was for reasons of safe launch of the Ascent Module.
Keep in mind that the 31 feet is from foot to foot, and it is half that distance from the centerline to the feet, so he ratio is more like 21/16½. It gets worse when you consider that between the feet it is even less than that 16½ feet from the centerline, it is more like 12 feet from the centerline. With the CG at 12 feet, that means that the craft could tip over on a 45 ˚ landing site.
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Ray Van Dune wrote: “Once spaceships can be built in LEO space, lunar travel will allow a less elegant ratio (and require no streamlining)”
That saucer shape may be appropriate, since we would be the space invaders.
A spherical shape may turn out to be rather elegant, similar to the LEO-Lunar spaceliner in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. The ratio of internal volume to surface area may help with thermal control.
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Blair Ivey wrote: “The instant the liquid masses less than the container, the system CoG will start to move toward the container CoG.”
The CoG of the liquid when it is the same mass as the container is just a little way from the bottom, so the minimum center of mass of the system will be a little way above 25% of the height of the container. As I said, a fun exercise.
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DougSpace wrote: “Blast resistant tarps or sintering will create a dust-free landing pad. ”
There are ideas to sinter-in-place the regolith that is there, but I see a few problems concerning the ability to make such landing pads thick enough to withstand the forces they will experience.
My expectation is that rather than use sintered material, they will create concrete from the existing regolith to make flat, level landing pads. The edges may have concrete berms in order to prevent engine blasts from kicking up dust and debris from beyond the edge of the pad. It is important to protect any structures, vehicles, and people in the area from debris kicked up by these blasts.
On the Moon, how far away would this debris travel before falling back to the ground, and how fast would it be moving when it got there? Lunar base planning, design, and development could be an interesting process.
All,
This discussion about landing pads on the Moon made me think immediately of the condition of SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy launchpad after the first test launch a year ago. No water system, and the rocket sent chunks of concrete flying for hundreds of feet and dust flying for miles. On the Moon things will fly even farther.
Obviously, Starship will not develop the thrust that Superheavy does, not even close. Nonetheless, it will be taking off from ordinary lunar regolith, not a concrete pad. We should therefore not be surprised if it does some damage to that first Artemis manned landing site.
I had written in response to Larry: “Starship is supposed to be able to take around 100 tons of materiel to the surfaces of the Moon and Mars. This mass is above the propellant tanks, so on landing the center of mass is way above the center of the (100-ish ton dry weight) vehicle.”
This may be more true for Mars missions than lunar missions. Robert‘s comment reminded me that lunar landings will tend to carry enough propellants to launch from the surface again, so for lunar landings the mass will be larger (several hundred tons) and the center of mass will be somewhat lower than I had imagined.
On Mars, the plan is to use the martian environment to generate fuel and oxidizer for the return trip, so the tanks may be much more empty for Mars landings than for lunar landings. The center of mass for Mars landings may be much higher, so more level landing sites will be needed.
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Robert wrote: “Nonetheless, it will be taking off from ordinarly lunar regolith, not a concrete pad.”
Even should later missions land on paved pads at established lunar bases, the HLS Starships have engines mounted far up on their bodies, and the exhaust from them will strike the ground in a very large area, so an especially large pad will be needed to prevent those engines from kicking up lunar regolith.