SpaceX, Blue Origin Compete For 'Artemis III' Mission (apnews.com) 19
After Artemis II's astronauts returned to earth, "NASA has Artemis III in its sights," reports the Associated Press:
In a mission recently added to the docket for next year, Artemis III's yet-to-be -named astronauts will practice docking their Orion capsule with a lunar lander or two in orbit around Earth. Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin are racing to have their company's lander ready first. Musk's Starship and Bezos' Blue Moon are vying for the all-important Artemis IV moon landing in 2028. Two astronauts will aim for the south polar region, the preferred location for [NASA Administrator Jared] Isaacman's envisioned $20 billion to $30 billion moon base. Vast amounts of ice are almost certainly hidden in permanently shadowed craters there — ice that could provide water and rocket fuel.
The docking mechanism for Artemis III's close-to-home trial run is already at Florida's Kennedy Space Center. The latest model Starship is close to launching on a test flight from South Texas, and a scaled-down version of Blue Moon will attempt a lunar landing later this year.
The docking mechanism for Artemis III's close-to-home trial run is already at Florida's Kennedy Space Center. The latest model Starship is close to launching on a test flight from South Texas, and a scaled-down version of Blue Moon will attempt a lunar landing later this year.
Why can't they all just get along? (Score:4, Funny)
Here's an idea - give it to Boeing / ULA. You save money because you don't have to worry about the return leg of the trip.
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Or give it to both of them. They could probably each send 10 missions for the price of one Boeing mission that will be too big to cancel and too bloated to meet deadlines and come in on budget.
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The hope is that at least one of them can beat the Chinese to it.
SpaceX is iterating but hasn't yet reliably reached orbit with unmanned ships, and needs to develop several more technologies to actually land. They need to do in-orbit refuelling, fly to the moon, and then demonstrate a soft landing (without anything to catch it like they have on Earth), and finally ascend to lunar orbit again (the crew will then transfer to Orion for the return trip).
Blue Origin haven't launched anything, but tend not to unt
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But there is no way a human should be in that for at least another 50, successful, unmanned landings.
I think the most likely solution is a hybrid: Dragon to Starship in LEO, Starship to the moon carrying Orion + BO lander, and back, Dragon from Starship in LEO to splashdown.
But that would require Musk and Bezos to both swallow their not-inconsiderable pride.
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The current plan is to use SLS and Orion to get to lunar orbit, then transfer to the lander which will make its own way there. Then on the return, go back to to Orion in lunar orbit and head for Earth.
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Kind of surprising (Score:1)
Re:Kind of surprising (Score:5, Interesting)
Not sure what sources of "press coverage" you're following, but... it was all over the news I read and watch, at least.
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But even so in the past it wouldn't have left the news cycle even with all that going on.
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It was all over the news. Esp the bathroom issues. Just not more important than war and pressing issues.
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It's kind of surprising how little press coverage Artemis has gotten. People flew around the moon.
Yes. 57 years ago. Apollo 8 was the first manned trip to the moon, and it did a lot better than a flyby.
SLS is nothing but a giant money-funnel, sending US taxpayer dollars by the billion to Boeing and Northrop Grumman,
using leftover parts from the Shuttle program, designed in the 1970s. Yet it has still taken 15 years to reach the first manned test flight.
Orion is even older, a scaled up Apollo capsule. Supposedly partially re-usable, but that is looking very unlikely.
The real excitement is the compet
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I love Space. I hate SLS/Artemis.
You missed a bit:
SLS is nothing but a giant money-funnel, sending US taxpayer dollars by the billion to Boeing and Northrop Grumman, using leftover parts from the Shuttle program, designed in the 1970s to be reusable but being thrown away after one use in 2026 @ $140,000,000 a piece.
"The real excitement is the competition between Blue Origin and SpaceX for the lunar lander."
I think they will both be part of a hybrid mission: Spacex from Earth to Lunar orbit, BO to lunar
SpaceX vs Blue Origin (Score:5, Insightful)
Im actually really rooting for Blue Origin to be successful. But right now there is no other space company that even comes close to SpaceX. Blue Orgin has launched a few tourists into what charitably counts as space. If you look past the hype around their founder, SpaceX is a company that launches nearly every other day. Thats more than more than the rest of the planet combined.
Schedule seems extremely ambitious (Score:2)
I'd love to see this happen, but getting either lunar lander launched into LEO next year sees highly unlikely and a 2028 landing even more unlikely.
It took 3.5 years to go from Artemis 1 to Artemis 2 - basically the same mission except with people. This sadly isn't the 1960s anymore.
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Yep. The Orbital Refueling requirement is an existential risk to the whole program. There are going to be issues here, and therefore delays.
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