NASA picks three commercial companies to build manned lunar rovers
Capitalism in space: NASA yesterday announced that it has picked three commercial companies, Astrolab, Intuitive Machines, and Lunar Outpost, to begin feasibility design work on its new manned lunar rovers, dubbed a Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV), for its planned Artemis missions to the Moon.
NASA will acquire the LTV as a service from industry. The indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, milestone-based Lunar Terrain Vehicle Services contract with firm-fixed-price task orders has a combined maximum potential value of $4.6 billion for all awards.
The three companies are actually each a partnership of several American companies, as follows:
- Astrolab is building its FLEX rover in partnership with Axiom Space, Inc., and Odyssey Space. Its contract is worth up to $1.9 billion.
- Intuitive Machines is building its RACER rover in partership with AVL, Boeing, Michelin, and Northrop Grumman. This initial award is worth $30 million, but future buys from NASA could exceed $1 billion.
- Lunar Outpost is building its Lunar Dawn rover in partnership with Lockheed Martin, General Motors, Goodyear, and MDA Space.
All three lead companies are essentially startups that have partnered with older established players, a likely requirement imposed by NASA to give their effort some experienced help. Though this system of dividing up the work between all the players follows the old scheme used by NASA and the established big space companies for decades in order to guarantee every company gets steady work and a continuing cash flow from the government, the difference is that the product will be designed, built, and owned by each partnership, not NASA, allowing each to sell that product to others outside the agency.
If this goes as planned, eventually the government money will become somewhat irrelevant, once a real commercial industry starts functioning in space and on the Moon. That’s what happened in the airplane industry in the 1920s to the 1950s.
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
Capitalism in space: NASA yesterday announced that it has picked three commercial companies, Astrolab, Intuitive Machines, and Lunar Outpost, to begin feasibility design work on its new manned lunar rovers, dubbed a Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV), for its planned Artemis missions to the Moon.
NASA will acquire the LTV as a service from industry. The indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, milestone-based Lunar Terrain Vehicle Services contract with firm-fixed-price task orders has a combined maximum potential value of $4.6 billion for all awards.
The three companies are actually each a partnership of several American companies, as follows:
- Astrolab is building its FLEX rover in partnership with Axiom Space, Inc., and Odyssey Space. Its contract is worth up to $1.9 billion.
- Intuitive Machines is building its RACER rover in partership with AVL, Boeing, Michelin, and Northrop Grumman. This initial award is worth $30 million, but future buys from NASA could exceed $1 billion.
- Lunar Outpost is building its Lunar Dawn rover in partnership with Lockheed Martin, General Motors, Goodyear, and MDA Space.
All three lead companies are essentially startups that have partnered with older established players, a likely requirement imposed by NASA to give their effort some experienced help. Though this system of dividing up the work between all the players follows the old scheme used by NASA and the established big space companies for decades in order to guarantee every company gets steady work and a continuing cash flow from the government, the difference is that the product will be designed, built, and owned by each partnership, not NASA, allowing each to sell that product to others outside the agency.
If this goes as planned, eventually the government money will become somewhat irrelevant, once a real commercial industry starts functioning in space and on the Moon. That’s what happened in the airplane industry in the 1920s to the 1950s.
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
If you have noticed Space X is not in the running.
Why you ask? They already have a lunar rover. Well could have one with very little rework. the Tesla car could be turned into one with a simple shock absorber change, wheel change and of course the body panel changes to fit the bigger lunar tires. Strip off all the junk that makes it earth customer comfortable. Like the heated seats and air conditioning. They could even turn it into a pick up truck with a little work.
It could be the same vehicle they eventually take to Mars.
As much as I like SpaceX, and it wouldn’t surprise me if eventually they end up building a rover for themselves if the market doesn’t have one that meets their needs when they get there, saying that a Tesla car could be turned into a lunar rover with just some changes is like saying a 737 can be turned into a sport glider just be removing the engines and fuel tanks.
The thing about a manned rover of any kind is that there are thousands of use cases to be engineered and tested and if the thing breaks down far enough away from base camp then people could die. A model T would be a better starting point than a Tesla IMHO. So I think it is great that there are multiple efforts with hybrid teams. The new rovers need to be good for so much more than the couple days use that the old rovers were used for
What is so special about a lunar rover that Tesla could not build?
A totally sealed drive system. Got that.
A drive by wire system. Got that.
A power system. Got that
Now all he needs to do is build the frame to carry it all.
All in house.
Look at the Tesla pickup truck. make the cab large enough for a space suited person and it could even keep extra dust off of the colonist on the drive through the winds of Mars. Gull wing doors would work great.
A delivery vehicle. Its getting there. What would it take to get his second stage to land on the moon? Not take off from it but just soft land. A second flight could recover any astronauts who go on the first flight.
He essentially has no weight limit. NASA counts grams and fight over the last two.
By not taking government money for contracts for things he could do himself he can do it his way. Then prove it works and undercut ALL of his competitors.
Strip a Tesla down to its batteries, drive motors and steering system and you have the reliability of a Model T.
Model T’s were in fact not that reliable. I actually learned to work on those things and unless they were in perfect tune they were bears to keep running.
No fuel pumps. No fuel filters.They used gravity and motor vacuum. If the float in the carb got stuck open it would drain a half gallon of gas out on the ground and you would have to by hand refill the gravity fuel can.
From the press release.
“The LTV will be able to handle the extreme conditions at the Moon’s South Pole and will feature advanced technologies for power management, autonomous driving, and state of the art communications and navigation systems.”
As for communications on the Moon.
Radio only works line of sight without any satellite relay systems or atmosphere to bounce the signal off of., So someone will have to place a network of satellites in orbit around the moon to make sure Moon wide communication is possible. Or use a lunar based relay station system.
This same system could be used as a basic lunar positioning system to help with an autonomous driving and navigation system.
We used to use a few radio beacons for ship positioning before GPS became real good.
Now the real question is what range do they want for these lunar transportation vehicles?
They could send up and use a trailer mounted relay station and recharge point for the rovers.
The rover and two people go out a hundred miles and set up the trailer/power station.
These are too lightweight for me.
I want a belly landed Starship with a massive rover inside that has a shielded reactor positioned forward and between the two front wheels…that can move back like on the Antonovs.
You need to bear down to drill.
https://www.universetoday.com/166526/why-is-it-so-hard-to-drill-off-earth/
You cover the thing in lead acid batteries launched later.
This thing can drive piles in the Moon so as to wrap cables around it to lower Starships flat.
Having troubles today Jeff?
Tell us about it, let it out, you will feel better in the end.