Artemis Moon Program

[NMaude]

The more Starships fly apart—the better SLS will look to anyone besides Musketeers.

Yup! Except that the Muskrat, like the Orange Oaf, has a Mt. Everest sized ego and that ego may demand that he try to screw with the SLS never mind that Starship is far from ready for commercial service.

I'd say that it's a sure bet that Artemis II will liftoff as it's already in the process of being stacked, Artemis III has had most of its' major components built and is almost ready for final assembly of its' first-stage (Its' ICPS, LVSA and SRB subassemblies are already in storage awaiting stacking). Artemis IV is in the early stages of subsystem assembly and Artemis V is IIRC having major structural parts for its' first-stage in the machining and bending stage.

 

[BlueAbyssal]

Given the abysmal performance of the SLS program, its guaranteed high cost, and low flight rate, name-calling and tribalism don’t engender support for the program at all. Unless you’re Boeing, there’s very little anyone can do to make the SLS better than it is, and they’re happy with how things are going. Money and jobs, not flying missions, is their top priority. Why wouldn’t it be? Congress wanted it that way from the start. SpaceX is attempting something dramatically more ambitious that no one has ever managed. Regardless of what the outcome is, if we actually care about having reliable transport to the Moon, starting to look for alternatives to the SLS right now is paramount. For people panicking about that sentence, that does not intrinsically mean getting rid of the SLS. It’s the same thinking behind having multiple cargo and manned transports for the ISS - if one has an issue, another can pick up the slack. Does going to the Moon actually matter? If so, two or more manned vehicles are required. If not, but sending money to Alabama and Louisiana is, then be open about it.

 

[NMaude]

I was checking over at the NASASpaceflight Heavy Lift Launcher forum and it had some news to do with the Artemis V first-stage thrust-section:

Quoted from the Artemis V thread:

https://images.nasa.gov/details/MAF_20241218_CS5_ESliftVWC03

Technicians at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility move the engine section of NASA’s Space Launch System rocket for Artemis V on December 18, 2024, at NASA Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, LA. Throughout 2024, new tooling was erected in bldg. 115 for the upcoming iterations of the Space Launch System (SLS), Exploration Upper Stage (EUS), and the test articles required to develop and assemble each efficiently and effectively. This barrel is the sixty-fourth produced for the Space Launch System program since its inception and is the first barrel weld completed for the core stage of the Artemis V mission. This engine section will be used on the evolved Block 1B configuration of the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket. It is one of the first components that will make up a portion of the core stage that will power NASA’s Artemis V mission. According to a Boeing engineer, as of this barrel, the VWC has now completed 515 production welds, with friction-stir welding a cumulative distance of 111,568 inches. Image credit: NASA/Michael DeMocker

https://images.nasa.gov/details/MAF_20250210_CS5_LH2_Barrel_out_VWC-01

This image shows NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility move crew lifting a completed liquid hydrogen tank barrel off the Vertical Weld Center on Feb. 10. The barrel, which will be used on the core stage of NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket, is one of the first pieces of flight hardware manufactured for the agency’s Artemis V mission. The 22-foot-tall barrel section is one of five barrels, which – along with two end domes – make up the 130.8-foot-tall liquid hydrogen fuel tank. The SLS core stage liquid hydrogen tank holds 537,000 gallons of super-cooled propellant and is one of five unique elements that make up the SLS core stage.

I keep forgetting just how big those barrel-sections for the LOX and LH2 tanks are.

Any it would appear that Boeing is already got production of major structural subsections for Artemis V's first-stage well under way.

 

[NMaude]

Apparently the Athena Moon-lander's laser-altimeter crapped out during the probe's descent, from the Space Bucket:

It's now been confirmed that the Athena lunar lander's altimeter failed around the time the spacecraft reached the Moon. This instrument is key in the process of determining the lander's distance from the surface, which it then uses during the final landing maneuver.

Without it, the Athena spacecraft didn't know its distance from the ground, which no doubt had an impact on the lander tipping over and sliding into its final resting place in a crater.

Credit:
Intuitive Machines - / @intuitivemachines

Chapters:
0:00 - Intro
0:29 - Altimeter Failure
4:36 - CEO Statement

 

[publiusr]

I keep forgetting just how big those barrel-sections for the LOX and LH2 tanks are.

They're getting better and probably could go faster--building something right to begin with let's you do that--where playing around is going to slow Starship development now--maybe Elon will find screaming at folks doesn't make them go faster.

That's okay--let the NewSpace tribalists think all we do is stay in rocking chairs over here.

 

[TomcatViP]

That's okay--let the NewSpace tribalists think all we do is stay in rocking chairs over here.

That...

 

[BlueAbyssal]

It’s absurd and childish, I agree. Eight full Starship prototypes have already been launched, compared to one test flight for the SLS, and Starship will certainly have more test launches before Artemis II than the SLS will launch total. Evidently Boeing isn’t doing things ‘right’ enough in order to build SLS cores at well under a tenth the rate SpaceX builds Starship stages every year.

 

[Kiltonge]

Apparently the Athena Moon-lander's laser-altimeter crapped out during the probe's descent, from the Space Bucket:

"Two is one and one is none" applies not only to back-ups but also diversity of sensors. Reliance on a single type is altimeter seems foolhardy; radalts are cheap and light

The more we learn about this lander the more I wonder how it regressed so far beyond 1960s design philosophy.

 

[Byeman]

They're getting better and probably could go faster--building something right to begin with let's you do that--where playing around is going to slow Starship development now--maybe Elon will find screaming at folks doesn't make them go faster.

That's okay--let the NewSpace tribalists think all we do is stay in rocking chairs over here.

not really. SLS is glacially slow. There isn't any real progress to see, since "improvements" haven't increase production rates above a snail's pace
Can't be stating that something will be "slowing" Starship development, when it has flown 7 times since the one SLS launch.
That is just changing the narrative to fit your perception of world (which is not shared with the majority).

That's okay--let the NewSpace tribalists think all we do is stay in rocking chairs over here.

Who is "we" and "here"?
"Stay in rocking chairs"? more like not even getting out of bed.

 

[Byeman]

The more Starships fly apart—the better SLS will look to anyone besides Musketeers.

That is far from happening.
In any universe, there is nothing that can make SLS look good. There isn't enough lipstick to make it look good. A pig is still a pig.
SLS is worse than LCS.
Artemis needs Starship. No Starship, no need for SLS.

 

[publiusr]

Now that you are retired--maybe get with SpaceX and give them a few pointers.

 

[Kiltonge]

Rough estimates are that each Starship test launch has cost around $100 million. Let's double that for the sake of argument. So, they could fly 20 complete failures before equalling one SLS launch bill...

And that's disregarding the $85 billion ( adjusted dollars ) already digested by SLS; another 400 Starship launches, or one-third of the entire Apollo program 1960-73.

The financial magnitude of SLS is breathtaking.

 

[Archibald]

The only useful role for SLS would be a variation of Zubrin's Mars Direct : dropping payloads to Mars surface to augment Starship missions.
But SLS can't even do that, because pathetic flight rate and $4 billion a single launch... also weak upper stage.

 

[BlueAbyssal]

Yes. It’s very difficult to shoehorn the SLS into any architecture which wants to be more ambitious than Apollo 8. In theory it can be done, but the resources needed to do so would achieve more if invested elsewhere.

 

[NMaude]

also weak upper stage.

I assume you're referring to the ICPS? Boeing already has the much higher capacity EUS in development.

 

[publiusr]

I want an NTR atop SLS.

Starship is fine for bulk payloads--I don't trust it beyond that.

 

[NMaude]

I want an NTR atop SLS.

Definitely handy if you want to send a crewed spacecraft to Mars and not want to spend eights getting there using conventional chemical propulsion, of course such a payload would have ALL of the greenie-luddites (Such as Greenpeace) coming out of the woodwork.

 

[BlueAbyssal]

Refueling at both ends cuts down on travel time substantially, and allows chemical propulsion to perform at a level otherwise unobtainable except through nuclear propulsion. There's no real need for nuclear for transit all the way out to the inner Main Belt. In any event, all of this is beyond the topic of Artemis, except for eventually refueling Starship on the Moon using lunar oxygen. There are already companies working on enabling just that.

 

[FighterJock]

I thought that it was the plan to use Starship to haul large capacity cargo to the Moon and let the astronauts go on the SLS publiusr, at least that was what I read somewhere online.