NASA Reveals Major New Lunar Gateway Update!

on today's episode we are getting into the latest space news including NASA finally turns their attention to the upcoming Gateway Lunar Station SpaceX talks starship's future while prepping for its first launch attempt and relativity space does the same with their 3D printed rocket there's lots to go over this week so let's get going this is the space race we haven't heard much about NASA's Gateway lunar space station program for almost two years now not since the agency started delaying its launch contracts with rocket services provider SpaceX back in April of 2021. NASA had originally awarded the contract to deliver cargo to the new space station in orbit around the Moon back in 2020. SpaceX beat out several big name competitors like Boeing and Northrop Grumman but haven't made much news since then the lunar Gateway project intends on using international and Commercial Partnerships to create a new space station in lunar orbit this station is meant to not just be a hub for upcoming lunar activity like the Artemis program but also to serve as a jumping off point for Missions as far away as Mars and Beyond getting almost anywhere else in the solar system is relatively easy compared to escaping Earth's atmosphere if we had a refueling Depot in space missions would suddenly find themselves without the need to carry so much fuel into orbit it's a literal gateway to the rest of our solar system the station is planned as the linchpin of space operations for the next decade at least with small habitation modules linkages for cargo and personal transfer Vehicles lunar Landers and refueling it even has its own solar electric propulsion module and all of these pieces are planned to be launched in a series of well-planned out missions intending to precede the first Artemis moon landing missions but why would NASA seem to be sidelining such an important program Artemis for the first Artemis Mission planning to make use of the Gateway is scheduled for 2027 which doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room for accidents or mistakes however according to Mark Weiss NASA's manager of deep space logistics for the Gateway program it only seems like NASA hasn't been working on Gateway why spoke at the spacecom conference on February 22nd and said that NASA and SpaceX have been working hard behind the scenes on the more difficult parts of the upcoming Gateway missions because compared to those challenges getting the station into position isn't such a big deal especially when NASA has to be careful with its money Weiss says we purposely delayed activating the contract to make sure we are not spending money and throwing resources where it doesn't need to be thrown and what he means by this is pretty clear the first gateway missions are going to be conducted by SpaceX using their Falcon heavy and dragon XL capsule the latter of which is still being refined for the specifics of the Gateway missions when the dragon XL was first tapped for the Gateway project it was intended to just be a transport for crew and supplies since then NASA's review process has evolved their concepts of what the mission could need and after studying some options with SpaceX Engineers it looks like they plan on using the XL as a secondary crew cabin and bathroom NASA likely didn't want to formally engage the contract for the first mission without having those changes to the Excel thoroughly investigated the current timeline was for the first two modules of Gateway the power and propulsion element and the Halo habitation module to be launched on a falcon heavy rocket no earlier than November 2024 but now Weiss believes SpaceX could be ready sooner as soon as this year in fact which is great news NASA has been seriously considering whether to commit to Artemis 3 the first planned moon landing of that program without Gateway being up and running that would seriously complicate that Landing but with Gateway running even just the Halo and the propulsion element NASA can afford to be more flexible we know from recent experience that launching and constructing a space station is relatively quick in low earth orbit at least China began launching parts of their tiangong station in early 2021 and it only took two years and eight months for all three modules to be launched and attached to each other but in this case we're not talking about assembling a habitable space station in a simple close low earth orbit we're talking about shipping the parts to the Moon a trip which takes months to complete efficiently then NASA has to perfectly maneuver the station's modules into a near rectilinear Halo orbit an orbit that allows for near constant communication lines with Earth this orbit is tricky but is so important to this program that NASA sent a robotic Pathfinder called Capstone to scout it out last year and once all of that is accomplished those modules have to be affixed to each other just like the crew of the tiangong did for their station which means the first crew of The Gateway station is going to be setting all sorts of Records NASA hasn't been idle as usual they've just been meticulously planning everything they have been spending all this time since the 2020 announcement researching and designing the dragon XL Hardware with SpaceX X and they've also been trying to figure out if they can have a Gateway up and running in time or commit to Artemis 3's Landing without it so while we can see why developing the tech 4 Gateway is more important than scheduling the missions it's a little unnerving to see how close we've come to having to push back the already cramped Artemis timeline it has to be a huge relief to Mission planners that they can start work this year and potentially have the station up and running by 2024. as usual the administration is nothing if not careful slow and steady classic NASA SpaceX is gearing up for their starship Rockets first orbital launch attempt after test firing 31 of the boosters 33 engines on February 9th most of us thought that they were in for at least one or two more tests after all the static fire was performed at half strength and two of the engines weren't able to activate however it seems that the team at spacex's Boca Chica testing site consider that more than enough to begin planning their first orbital launch test as 31 engines is enough redundancy to get Starship into orbit and the launch Hardware like the orbital launch Mount and its concrete pad held up very well to this latest static fire test at least that's what Gary Henry said at the space Mobility conference on February 21st Gary is the senior advisor for National Security space Solutions at SpaceX and is very confident about the company's chances of Performing the pivotal orbital launch test in March of this year saying quote pretty much all of the pre prerequisites to supporting an orbital demonstration attempt here in the next month or so look good and while we've been hearing that SpaceX has been on the cusp of launching their starship vehicle for about a year now this time really seems to be genuine and not because more executives are saying it than just CEO Elon Musk it's true that Starship and the super heavy booster that powers it have gone through a fairly rigorous testing process but there are other reasons to believe Starship is headed for a launch next month during the conference Mr Henry noted that the company is ready to move ahead with Starship operations the second it Nails those orbital tests and SpaceX doesn't play around with launch readiness for example just last year the SpaceX missions team launched 60 missions with the company's Workhorse Falcon 9 rocket knowing how important Starship is to Future SpaceX operations it's hard to see this as just business it looks like they've been training their team to keep up a steady launch Cadence in preparation for their new rocket and Henry lays out the reason for that in his talk Starship is meant to launch the new Starling V2 satellites a huge leap forwards for the company's satellite internet product the company also has plans to use modified Starship hulls to make a refueling Depot in low earth orbit the plan is to use this Depot to fuel flights to Mars and Beyond and would require upwards of 14 launches to fill the depot for later use and beyond that another modified Starship has been contracted by NASA to be a landing vehicle for the Artemis 3 mission and maybe more if it works well aside from all of that Starship is intended to pick up where Falcon 9 left off making launches cheaper and safer with the goal that the vehicle will one day drive the cost of space travel down just from the turnaround speed of its launches according to Mr Henry launching anything to orbit carries a cost of roughly two thousand dollars per kilogram right now SpaceX wants to see that down to 200 per kilo which is revolutionary on its own but of course Elon would like it to be lower while discussing these costs Henry quipped if Elon gets his way you're at twenty dollars per kilogram which sounds far-fetched but that's on par for musk's goal for his companies in any case SpaceX has one final hurdle before trying their orbital launch test a license from the FAA but Henry is also certain that all the boxes have been checked in that regard and is sure that the company should receive the FAA nod in a couple of weeks Starship represents the next step in the industrial realization of space if it can work the way SpaceX says it will the next decade or so will be something to see all eyes are on that March calendar and Starship isn't the only big launch plan for March relativity space has announced that its 3D printed rocket the Terran 1 will be making its first attempted launch on March 8th relativity is a us-based company whose goal is to create completely reusable Rockets out of 3D printed material the the idea is to use automation to significantly reduce the amount of time and resources it takes to make a launch vehicle and their printing technology is incredible to say the least both the Terran 1 and relativities in development medium lift rocket the Terran are are almost entirely 3D printed the Terran one is about 85 percent manufactured this way including its nine-methane powered aeon engines more specifically Terran 1 is built for constellation deployment working to set up networks like starlink and Amazon's Kuiper project while smaller than the Terran R the Terran one can put up about 1250 kilograms to low earth orbit and could get about 700 kilograms into sun synchronous orbit about 1200 kilometers above the Earth which is extremely impressive for any vehicle let alone a completely 3D printed one the Terran one is another new rocket platform that has faced a barrage of testing over the last year with six total static fires and 185 seconds of burn time with no failures or engine Replacements and even though one more test had been planned to ensure the vehicle would hold up the relativity team has decided to forego that extra test and just go straight to the launch there's a few good reasons to make that call often teams will decide that they'd rather hit a specific launch window for instance in Taran one's case it's because the company believes attempting another test would potentially damage the already thoroughly tested rocket and so they'd rather risk an early launch and see what happens not everyone can afford spacex's parade of test Vehicles the Terran one is an important live test of relativity's procedures and goals the technology used to create it and the Terran R is something the rest of the world would love to see work 3D printing on this scale would be incredible to nail down for more applications than just rocketry so best of luck relativity meet us back here every week for more updates on everything Aerospace industry and Interstellar exploration related make sure to give the video a thumbs up today if you liked it that really helps us out for real and subscribe to the Space Race for more videos just like this we do one long form essay and one news update every week and if you'd like more we've got two more on the screen for you right now

Channel: The Space Race

Views: 150,949

Keywords: nasa, lunar gateway, lunar gateway station, nasa news, nasa updates, spacex, spacex news, lunar gateway space station, lunar exploration, artemis mission

Id: iESDZo0DDtI

Length: 12min 35sec (755 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 01 2023