get to the Moon … The report estimates that canceling the SLS rocket, its floor programs, Orion, and the Lunar Gateway would save NASA $5.25 billion a 12 months. The authors posit a number of completely different architectures for a lunar lander that may be prepared sooner and be appropriate with present rockets. This features a novel plan to make use of Crew Dragon, with legs, as a lander. It’s not clear how a lot influence the report can have, as Congress appears to wish to fly the SLS indefinitely, and the Trump administration seeks to cancel the rocket after two extra flights.
NASA is lastly thinking about propellant depots. This week NASA’s Marshall Area Flight Middle posted an replace noting its current work on growing and testing expertise to handle cryogenic propellants in area. Groups on the area heart in Huntsville, Alabama examined an progressive strategy to realize zero boiloff storage of liquid hydrogen utilizing two phases of energetic cooling, which may forestall the lack of priceless propellant. “Applied sciences for lowering propellant loss have to be applied for profitable long-duration missions to deep area just like the Moon and Mars,” mentioned Kathy Henkel, performing supervisor of NASA’s Cryogenic Fluid Administration Portfolio Challenge, based mostly at NASA Marshall.
If solely this had been achieved earlier … That is nice, clearly, as long-term storage of liquid propellants resembling oxygen, hydrogen, and methane are vital to the methods of SpaceX, Blue Origin, and different corporations working to develop reusable and less expensive area transportation autos. Nonetheless, it’s considerably ironic to see NASA and Marshall selling this work after it was suppressed for a decade by US Sen. Richard Shelby, the Alabama Republican. As Ars has beforehand reported, so as to defend the Area Launch System rocket, Shelby directed NASA to finish its work on storage and switch of cryogenic propellants, going as far as to say he would hearth anybody who used the phrase ‘depot.’ Effectively, we’ll say it: Depot.
Subsequent three launches
August 1: Falcon 9 | Crew-11 | Kennedy Area Middle, Florida | 15:43 UTC
August 2: Electron | JAKE 4 suborbital flight | Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia | 01:45 UTC
August 4: Falcon 9 | Starlink 10-30 | Cape Canaveral Area Pressure Station, Florida | 04:11 UTC
