Masten Space Systems is one of three companies NASA has signed agreements with for the Lunar Cargo Transportation and Landing by Soft Touchdown (Lunar CATALYST) program.
“The purpose of the Lunar CATALYST initiative is for NASA to encourage the development of U.S. private-sector robotic lunar landers capable of successfully delivering small (30 to 100 kg) and medium (250 to 500 kg) class payloads to the lunar surface using U.S. commercial launch capabilities,” the agreement states.
“This no-funds-exchanged Space Act Agreement (SAA) with the Partner enables provision and coordination of NASA in-kind contributions at no cost to the Partner, of NASA civil servant technical expertise, access to NASA test facilities, the loaning of equipment, and software,” the agreement adds.
The program, which began three years ago, was recently extended another two years for all three partners. Below is an update on Masten’s progress and a list of upcoming milestones.
| MASTEN SPACE SYSTEMS LUNAR CATALYST MILESTONES | |||
| NO. | MILESTONE | DATE | STATUS |
| 1 | Kickoff Meeting Masten shall describe the project scope, success criteria, project management plan, project status, and schedule to completion Success criterion: Completion of the meeting | September 2014 | Completed |
| 2 | Requirements Definition for robotic lander propulsion system Success criterion: Completion of the Requirements Definition Document (RDD) | October 2014 | Completed |
| 4 | Preliminary Design Review (PDR) for robotic lander propulsion & Reaction Control System (RCS) Success criterion: Completion of the PDR | May 2015 | Completed |
| 3 | Requirements Definition for Agility-Plus GNC Success criterion: Completion of the RDD | September 2015 | Completed |
| 6 | Requirements Definition for robotic lander structure and gear Success criterion: Completion of the RDD | September 2015 | Completed |
| 9 | Requirements Definition for robotic lander/Expendable Launch Vehicle compatibility & operations concept Success criterion: Completion of the RDD | September 2015 | Completed |
| 8 | PDR for robotic lander Structure & Gear Success criterion: Completion of the PDR | October 2015 | Completed |
| 10 | PDR for Agility-Plus GNC Success criterion: Completion of the PDR | October 2015 | Completed |
| 12 | PDR for robotic lander/ELV compatibility & operations concept Success criterion: Completion of the PDR | October 2015 | Completed |
| 5 | Financial Milestone 1 Masten will achieve 45 percent of 2014 target total revenue (as described in the Lunar CATALYST proposal) and apply this to robotic lunar lander development. Success criterion: Completion of the financial milestone. | April 2016 | Completed |
| 16 | Drop test of landing gear components Success criterion: Completion of drop test. | April 2016 | Completed |
| 17 | Financial Milestone 2 Masten will achieve 45 percent of 2015 target total revenue (as described in the Lunar CATALYST proposal) and apply this to robotic lunar lander development. Success criterion: Completion of the financial milestone. | April 2016 | Completed |
| 15 | Hotfire test of robotic lander main engine Success criterion: Completion of hotfire test. | November 2016 | Completed |
| 21 | Financial Milestone 3 Masten will achieve 45 percent of 2016 target total revenue (as described in the Lunar CATALYST proposal) and apply this to robotic lunar lander development. Success criterion: Completion of the financial milestone. | March 2017 | Completed |
| 7 | Test Readiness Review (TRR) of Agility-Plus GNC Success criterion: Completion of the TRR | October 2017 | |
| 11 | Integration of landing gear components onto XL-1T lunar lander demonstrator Success criterion: Integration completed. | October 2017 | |
| 13 | XL-1 Design Review 5 Success criterion: The proposed mission/system architecture is responsive to the program mission/system functional and performance requirements and requirements have been allocated to all functional elements of the mission/system. | October 2017 | |
| 14 | XL-1T Open Loop Agility-Plus suborbital Reusable Launch Vehicle (sRLV) flight on commercial vertical testbed Success criterion: Completion of open loop testing | January 2018 | |
| 18 | Integration of propulsion components onto XL-1T lunar lander demonstrator Success criterion: Integration completed. | February 2018 | |
| 19 | XL-1 Design Review 6 Success Criteria: Complete and comprehensive presentation of the entire design | March 2018 | |
| 20 | XEUS System Concept Design Review 1 Success Criteria: Conceptual Design Review Slides and exploration of trade space around science objectives and architecture March 2018 | March 2018 | |
| 22 | Financial Milestone 4 Masten will achieve 45 percent of 2017 target total revenue (as described in the Lunar CATALYST proposal) and apply this to robotic lunar lander development. Success criterion: Completion of the financial milestone. | March 2018 | |
| 23 | XL-1T End-to-end demonstration of hardware and software that enables a commercial lander on the Moon. Success criterion: Completion of the demonstration. | August 2018 | |
| 24 | XL-1 Design Review 7 Success Criteria: Complete and comprehensive presentation of the entire design, interfaces, block, flow, and timing diagrams, and modelling results. | September 2018 | |
| 25 | XL-1T Hotfire of XL-1T Main Engine Success Criteria: Successful hotfire of a single XL-1T main engine | September 2018 | |
| 26 | XEUS System Concept Design Review 2 Success Criteria: Conceptual Design Review Slides and selection of point design within the trade space | September 2018 | |
| 27 | XL-1 Design Review 8 Success Criteria: Design process check-point presenting updates and work progress from Design Review 7, and tasks for the next design analysis cycle. | March 2019 | |
| 29 | Financial Milestone 5 Masten will achieve 45 percent of 2018 target total revenue (as described in the Lunar CATALYST proposal) and apply this to robotic lunar lander development. Success criterion: Completion of the financial milestone. | March 2019 | |
| 30 | XL-1T Chaindown Test Success Criteria: Successful ignition of all four engines integrated on XL-1T | March 2019 | |
| 28 | XL-1 Design Review 9 Success Criteria: Complete and comprehensive presentation of the entire design and interfaces with documentation, and bread board and engineering model test results. | September 2019 | |
| 31 | XL-1T Tether Test Success Criteria: Successful ignition of all four engines using the closed-loop Agility-Plus Software | September 2019 | |
| 32 | XEUS System Concept Design Review 3 Success Criteria: Conceptual Design Review Slides and baseline concept. | September 2019 | |