NASA PRESS RELEASE
CLEVELAND — NASA has awarded a nearly $7 million contract to Aerojet-General Corporation of Sacramento, Calif., to design, develop, fabricate, test and evaluate a new rocket engine as part of the space agency’s efforts to land humans on the moon.
The objective of this work is to sufficiently increase the maturity of this technology to establish the feasibility of using a liquid oxygen and liquid methane main engine for the ascent stage of the Altair lunar lander. After visiting the lunar outpost, the crew will lift off from the surface of the moon in Altair’s ascent stage and rendezvous with the Orion crew vehicle in lunar orbit for the return trip to Earth.
Aerojet will work for 21 months to complete an evaluation of the rocket engine assembly, a 5,500 pound constant-thrust, pressure-fed rocket engine. The contract’s period of performance began on April 8.
This cost-plus-fixed-fee contract is valued at approximately $6.9 million. The Exploration Technology Development Program at NASA’s Headquarters in Washington is providing the funding.
Over at his Hyperbola blog, Rob Coppinger has expanded notes from a March 20 interview with Clint Dorris, deputy manager of NASA’s Altair lunar lander project. These is a relatively detailed discussion of design and engineering issues, so this piece is not for everyone. But, for those with a technical background, it might be worth a look.
NASA has awarded small contracts to five companies to conduct a 210-day study of the agency’s in-house design for a human lunar lander. The five companies are:
Andrews Space, Seattle
The Boeing Co., Houston
Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company, Denver
Northrop Grumman Corporation, El Segundo, Calif.
Odyssey Space Research, Houston.
The contracts total $1.5 million; the largest is for $350,000. These awards are part of NASA’s effort to send astronauts back to the moon by 2020.
“These studies will provide valuable input for developing a sound set of requirements for the Altair lunar lander,” said Jeff Hanley, the Constellation Program manager at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. “Industry collaboration will provide insight for our planning and early design efforts for the spacecraft.”
Aviation Week reports that the Ares V rocket isn’t powerful enough to launch a human mission to the moon as currently designed. Ares V’s capacity is about 11-12 tones below the 75.1 metric tons (with margins) that it needs to launch into trans-lunar injection. It is several tons short without margins.
“The payload requirements are very driving and very difficult to get to, and frankly our vehicle today is close but doesn’t quite meet those mission requirements,” said Phil Sumrall, advanced planning manager in the Exploration Launch Projects Office at Marshall Space Flight Center.
Current plans are for the Ares V to launch the Altair lunar lander, followed by the liftoff of the smaller Ares I with a four-member crew in the Orion spacecraft. The crew would spent four days in low Earth orbit before heading off to the moon.
NASA is working to boost the Ares V’s capacity as well as shaving about three tons off the Altair lander. In another article, Aviation Week reports the space agency has an in-house design team working on a rough concept for Altair. The team will be joined by some industry partners which will help develop a “minimal functional” design.
For more detailed information about the Altair design process, you can also check out this NASASpaceFlight.com article.