NASA Clouds Lunar Lander Development Plans With Two-Month Delay--Update
January 30 2021 - 1:39PM
Dow Jones News
By Andy Pasztor
NASA has extended to the end of April from the end of February
its deadline for awarding key contracts for landers intended to
take astronauts back to the moon.
The delay, which surprised some industry officials, will give
President Biden's incoming National Aeronautics and Space
Administration appointees more time to evaluate the three competing
teams and according to NASA, "seamlessly transition" from current
agreements to the next phase of the program.
But the move also is the clearest sign yet that the Biden
administration is likely to shake up and slow down plans that
currently call for taking U.S. crews back to the lunar surface as
early as 2024. That aggressive timetable had been considered moot
by many industry and government officials, even before NASA's
latest action made it more unlikely.
The change allows contractors to continue design and development
efforts. In April, NASA awarded a total of more than $960 million
to separate teams headed by closely held Blue Origin Federation
LLC, Elon Musk's Space Exploration Technologies Corp. and the
Dynetics unit of Leidos Holdings Inc. to begin work on proposed
lunar landers. The delayed awards are intended to be follow-on
contracts to further refine and test designs.
Without mentioning the 2024 lunar landing deadline set by
President Donald Trump, NASA said in a post on its website it "is
committed to establishing a sustained lunar presence, and this
procurement action is consistent" with that commitment.
Before Friday's announcement, at least two of the three teams
were expected to move to the next stage of developing spacecraft,
according to industry officials. But when new NASA leadership takes
over, that strategy could change, according to industry officials
following the issue.
The new leadership team also will have to firm up other elements
of NASA's overall human exploration plans for the moon, called
Artemis. Despite pushing ahead with the landers and a mammoth
rocket to transport them along with astronauts into lunar orbit,
NASA's previous leaders hadn't determined the precise role of a
proposed multibillion-dollar orbiting platform, called the lunar
gateway, in the initial landing missions. NASA's top outside safety
advisory panel has warned the agency needs to better coordinate and
oversee different portions of the Artemis initiative, or it risks
overlooking potential hazards to future crews.
Another complication is uncertainty surrounding the deep-space
rocket, called the Space Launch System or SLS, slated to carry the
landers into space. Boeing Co. is the prime contractor on the
program and is responsible for producing the core and related
avionics systems.
A Securities and Exchange Commission document filed earlier this
week by Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings Inc., a major SLS
subcontractor, reveals deep industry misgivings about the future
timetable for SLS flights. The document indicates Aerojet
Rocketdyne's board recently sharply scaled back revenue
projections, reduced likely SLS launch tempo and acknowledged
growing uncertainty about overall prospects for NASA's lunar
initiative.
NASA has announced what amounts to at least a similar two-month
delay for repeating a key ground test of the SLS, which has been
under development for nearly a decade but hasn't yet flown. Earlier
this month, test firing of the booster's four main engines was cut
short due to technical problems associated with the way the test
was set up.
The agency on Friday said it plans to redo the comprehensive
test as early as the end of February, making a test flight of the
full rocket unlikely by late 2021, as previously anticipated. NASA
also said Boeing determined the test would pose minimal risk to the
booster while providing valuable data to help certify it for
flight. If the second test is successful, it will take NASA at
least another month to prepare the booster for shipment to the
Florida launch site.
Write to Andy Pasztor at andy.pasztor@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 30, 2021 13:24 ET (18:24 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2021 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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