The Real Reason SpaceX Won The Moon Lander Contract
Let’s talk about the SpaceX Starship Moon Lander. Because now, finally, after spending the better part of this year entertaining Lex Luthor and his stream of protest and lawsuits that threatened to put the kai-bosh on the whole project - Starship is going to the Moon. And now that we can safely say that SpaceX are the true and undisputed winner of the NASA HLS contract, we can spend some time going over the reasons why Starship came out on top, how it’s going to function in a Moon mission and where the Lunar Starship fits in with everything that SpaceX are up to right now at their Starbase testing facility. So let’s get going.
The Contest
So the story begins with NASA’s open bidding process for a brand new lunar lander that would transport human beings to the surface of the Moon for the first time since the 1970’s. It’s a very exciting idea just to think about - our triumphant return to the Moon. But this time we’d be bringing along all the wonders of modern day technology. Or, in theory at least that would be the case, in practice though, most of the designs built around the Artemis program are straight out of the 1980’s - which is disappointing, but not surprising given that NASA are the people in charge - but that subject alone is a whole other video in itself that we’ll be posting on our sister channel, The Space Race, so head on over there and subscribe and keep an eye out for our video on why NASA’s Moon mission is in shambles, it’s going to be a fun one.
Anyway. NASA already had the designs locked down for the SLS launch rocket, the Orion crew vehicle and the Gateway orbital Moon station. But they chose to outsource the design for the actual lunar lander to an external contractor. The thing about Orion is that it’s designed to move people through deep space, but it’s not designed to land them anywhere. It’s missing that last mile delivery method.
The basic plan is to take the SLS rocket from the ground to orbit - at that point the SLS releases the Orion, which will fly astronauts to the Moon - in orbit around the Moon, Orion meets up with the Gateway station - at the gateway astronauts will transfer into the lander vehicle which takes them down to the surface and then a week later brings them back up again to the gateway, where they transfer back to the Orion, which flies them back to Earth and drops them in a capsule into the ocean.
So NASA rounded up the usual suspects and had them pitch ideas for this new Moon lander. That eventually narrowed down to three contestants - Dynetics, the Blue Origin National Team and SpaceX. Each of these groups came to the table with a very different take on what a Moon lander should be - which is good. And NASA had originally intended to choose two out of the three proposals to go into production - which is also good, that means redundancy, and that’s very important with giant, expensive projects. So these are the Moon lander proposals:
Dynetics
OK, Dynetics is a legacy aerospace and engineering company that was founded in 1974, they do a lot of national security and infrastructure type of work. For their Moon lander proposal, Dynetics actually assembled a crew that leans heavily on another legacy called Sierra Nevada, plus about 20 other small contractors. Sierra Nevada is the company that is actually responsible for building the lander, and they delivered the first prototype back in February 2021.
The Dynetics Team lander, which they call the ALPACA, is actually pretty neat. It can launch fully assembled inside the fairing of a United Launch Alliance Vulcan Centaur rocket, or the NASA SLS rocket. The ALPACA can fly from the Gateway down to the Moon’s surface also in one piece, it only has to jettison a couple of empty fuel tanks. The design of the lander is low and wide, so the whole thing stays pretty close to the ground and lands with a very stable footprint. Then the whole lander is again able to lift off in one piece and get back to Lunar orbit and the Gateway.
It’s a great idea in theory, but in practice things didn’t really come together. Dynetics received the lowest technical evaluation from NASA, rating as ‘marginal’. And they also came in with a staggering asking price of over 9 billion dollars in NASA funding.
Blue Origin
Contestant number two is Blue Origin - or the National Team, we should say. Because for all of the noise that Blue and their misguided leader have made about this situation, they’re only responsible for one third of the lander design. So, the Blue Balls lander has three key components, a transfer element, a descent stage and a habitation module, each made by a different company.
The whole lander can be launched in one piece by NASA’s SLS rocket, which is the second most powerful launch vehicle behind the SpaceX Super Heavy. But anything less than that and the three parts need to be shipped up individually and joined together in space.
The transfer element is designed by Northrop Grumman - same company that built the original Moon Lander in the 60’s. This is a kind of space tug, it’s job is to transfer the lander from the Gateway station to a lower Lunar orbit, where it then lets go of the lander, which consists of the other two parts..
The descent element is the one designed by Blue Origin. This thing's job is to get everyone down to the surface and land safely. It’s a BE-7, Hydro lox engine and a cargo bay with some legs and a guidance system.
The habitation module or ascent element is designed by Lockheed Martin - these are the same folks who designed the Orion spacecraft, the one that can’t land on its own. This is where the astronauts hang out during their one week vacation to the Moon. And this is also the part that will blast off and take them back to the Gateway. The descent stage is left behind at this point.
The two stage lander is a bit tall, with the crew entrance at the very top, so astronauts will have to climb a ladder to get in and out. The Footprint is still fairly wide, so it should be very stable on landing.
On their technical findings, NASA ranked the Blue Balls team with 13 strengths, 14 weaknesses and 2 significant weaknesses - which they grade as ‘acceptable’. Significant weaknesses centred around the engine system for the Blue Balls, which does not actually exist yet. According to NASA, quote, “Blue Origin’s propulsion systems for all three of its main HLS elements create significant development and schedule risks, many of which are inadequately addressed in Blue Origin’s proposal. These propulsion systems consist of complex major subsystems that have low Technology Readiness Levels and are immature for Blue Origin’s current phase of development.” NASA also wasn't stoked that Blue didn’t have any plans to test their non-existent engines before they loaded a crew of people into the Balls. NASA said, quote, “Waiting until the crewed mission to flight test these systems for the first time is dangerous, and creates a high risk of unsuccessful contract performance and loss of mission if any one of these untested systems does not operate as planned.” In addition to that, NASA didn’t have much faith in Blue’s communication system either, which did not meet the HLS requirements. NASA wrote, “As proposed, Blue Origin’s communications link errors would result in an overall lack of ability to engage in critical communications between HLS and Orion or Earth during lunar surface operations.”
The price tag for all of this was set at just shy of 6 billion dollars in NASA funding. Which, we should say, included two instances of advanced payments that Blue Origin wrote into their payment schedule - when it literally said in the project requirements that this wouldn’t be allowed, quote, “Proposals containing any advance payments are ineligible for a contract award.”
SpaceX
OK, we’re finally here, I know it was a long wait, but this stuff hits harder when you know what you are actually comparing it against.
So, the SpaceX Lunar Starship proposal was presented by SpaceX alone, with no external partners. This is the only design that does not have multiple hands in the pot. SpaceX also happens to design their own launch vehicle, the Super Heavy.
It’s a very simple idea, Starship goes on top of the Super Heavy, which pushes the whole thing into space and then disconnects. The Starship flies to the Moon in one piece (with a caveat that we’ll get to in a bit). The Starship then links up with Gateway and transfers people to the surface, still in one piece. The landing on the Moon is taken care of by side thrusters that are about halfway up the body of the ship - this way, the surface underneath the lander won’t be disturbed by exhaust. When they’re done, the whole thing lifts off again and returns to the Gateway. The Starship and Super Heavy are powered by SpaceX Raptor engines which actually do exist right now.
The design for the Lunar Starship is radically different from the other two contestants. SpaceX went way overkill on the volume and mass delivery, the ship is massive. So because of that, it is very tall and the crew will have to descend 126 feet to the surface and back. SpaceX plans to enable this with an elevator lift. It also leaves a pretty narrow landing footprint compared to the height of the rocket, which is still a bit unclear how they’re going to handle.
The big win for the Starship is its payload capacity. It can bring 100 tons of stuff along with the astronauts and the cargo door on the ship is big enough to park a Tesla Cybertruck. The baseline requirement for the project was just 850 kilograms of cargo capacity.
NASA wrote in their findings, quote, “SpaceX’s ability to deliver a host of substantial scientific and exploration-related assets to the lunar surface along with the crew is immensely valuable to NASA in the form of enhanced operational flexibility and mission performance. For example, SpaceX’s capability will support the delivery of a significant amount of additional hardware, including bulky and awkwardly- shaped equipment, for emplacement on the lunar surface. Together, this combination of capabilities dramatically increases the return on investment in terms of the science and exploration activities enabled.”
But with that big win comes a big challenge, and that is fuel. Because the Starship is so massive, it’s going to burn a ton of fuel every time that it needs to move. That means Starship actually has to be refueled in space with a second Starship acting as a tanker - which is an unprecedented maneuver. There has never been a cryogenic fuel transfer done in space before. And it’s going to take multiple fueling sessions for one Starship to reach the Moon. Elon Musk says 3 or 4 sessions will get them to the Moon but SpaceX detractors say it will be up to 16 refueling trips.
That sounds sketchy, but NASA knew all of this information when they rated SpaceX with the highest technical score of the three contestants. Starship received 3 significant strengths, due to it’s cargo capacity and the fact that SpaceX are actually building and testing this system right now, in real life. There were 10 strengths, 6 weaknesses and one significant weakness. That one significant weakness was identified as the operational complexity of refueling the ship in orbit. NASA wrote in their report, quote, “SpaceX’s mission depends upon an operations approach of unprecedented pace, scale, and synchronized movement of the vehicles in its architecture. This includes a significant number of vehicle launches in rapid succession, the refurbishment and reuse of those vehicles, and numerous in-space cryogenic propellant transfer events.”
NASA’s report went on to say, quote, “However, these concerns are tempered because they entail operational risks in Earth orbit that can be overcome more easily than in lunar orbit, where an unexpected event would create a much higher risk to loss of mission.”
In addition to their technical score, SpaceX were rated the strongest in terms of management with a grade of ``Outstanding”, while their peers were both ranked as ‘very good’. And they also came in with the lowest sticker price of any proposal, at just under 3 billion dollars in funding requested from NASA.
Lunar Starship vs Orbital Starship
OK, so now that we know why SpaceX are the winners and why Jeff Bezos is a loser, we can finish up by taking a look at where Starship is right now in terms of development.
We know that there have been several prototypes of the Starship that have already been built and flown at Starbase. Most of these have violently exploded, but one did complete a successful launch and landing maneuver within Earth’s atmosphere. The next step is to go orbital and that should be happening sometime within the next few months. The orbital Starship and Booster candidates are already built and are being tested as we speak. And the FAA expects to conclude their environmental assessment of the Starbase launch area by the end of 2021.
The Lunar Lander version of the Starship is going to be a bit different from the prototype that we know now. Since the Lunar Starship will never return to Earth, it doesn’t need the heat shield or the giant aero flaps that we see on the current design. So that’s going to give the Lunar variation a much more sleek look and it’s also going to mean the body of the Lunar ship can be much lighter and more simple to build. Which is good, because on the inside, the Lunar ship is going to be very complicated. A regular Starship is going to have a big, empty fairing that is designed to carry satellites and other orbiters into space. But the Lunar ship is going to need a pressurized, crew habitation section up at the top and an unpressurized cargo bay below that. The Lunar ship is going to have two air locks, one at the cargo bay and probably a second in the nose cone for docking. Then there needs to be that elevator system that carries people and equipment down to the surface and back.