New York Times - NASA Hires 3 Companies for Moon Science Deliveries
The landers would be the first American spacecraft to touch down on the moon since the astronauts of Apollo 17 left in 1972.
By Kenneth Chang
May 31, 2019
NASA is going to land on the moon again, maybe as soon as next year.
It will still be a while — no sooner than 2024 — before any astronauts return, but NASA plans to send experiments and technology packages on a series of small robotic landers carrying to the lunar surface.
On Friday, NASA announced the first orders for those deliveries, awarding them to Astrobotic Technology of Pittsburgh, Intuitive Machines of Houston and Orbit Beyond of Edison, N.J.
NASA officials said a hands-off approach — the companies will design, build and operate the spacecraft, not NASA — would speed the work at a lower cost. The agency also made its decisions in a few months, a quicker pace than most NASA programs.
“NASA is just a customer here,” said Chris Culbert, the manager of the program, known as Commercial Lunar Payload Services, or CLPS, for short. “NASA is taking a back seat role, if you will, in how we participate.”
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Although not as exciting as a human mission — which the agency optimistically hopes to accomplish before the end of 2024 — these landers would be the first American spacecraft to land on the moon since the astronauts of Apollo 17 left there in 1972.
Orbit Beyond is aiming to be the first to take off, in September 2020. The company, with NASA’s award of $97 million, has proposed flying as many as four payloads to Mare Imbrium, a lava plain in one of the moon’s largest craters.
Astrobotic is aiming to launch in summer 2021. It has been awarded $79.5 million and has proposed flying as many as 14 payloads to Lacus Mortis, another lunar crater.
Intuitive Machines has been awarded $77 million to fly as many as five payloads to Oceanus Procellarum, an intriguing dark spot on the moon.
While not large or well known, the three companies are not starting from scratch. Astrobotic has been in business for a dozen years, first started to compete for the Google Lunar X Prize, which offered a $25 million prize for the first private organization to land on the moon. Astrobotic dropped out of the X Prize race, which ended last year without a winner. But the company continued its work, convinced that there a viable commercial market for taking payloads to the lunar surface would emerge.
Orbit Beyond is the using the lander technology of another X Prize competitor, India’s Team Indus, and Intuitive Machines is led by Stephen J. Altemus, a former deputy director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
In November, NASA announced that it had selected nine companies to compete for up to $2.6 billion over the next decade under the CLPS program.
“This first round of payloads was selected from hardware that was in-house at NASA, largely already ready or things we could have ready by the end of the year,” Mr. Culbert said.
Those included instruments to measure radiation, the moon’smagnetic field and surface composition, advanced solar arrays and a navigation beacon.
NASA did not specify a specific destination and allowed the companies to propose which instruments they wanted to carry.
“We’ll get value out of all these payloads no matter where they go,” Mr. Culbert said. Future orders are likely be directed to specific lunar destinations like one of the poles or the far side of the moon.
These spacecraft would be small — far too small for astronauts or even to carry supplies to the surface. (They will probably be similar in size to Beresheet, the moon lander built by an Israeli nonprofit that attempted to land there earlier this year, but crashed.) NASA is essentially buying spaces on missions the companies were already planning to fly.
For example, the Astrobotic mission will carry 14 non-NASA payloads.
For future flights, spacecraft like these could survey potential landing sites for human missions. The next astronaut missions are to head near the lunar South Pole where there is ice frozen in the eternal shadows of some craters. The ice would not only be a source of water, but could also be broken apart into hydrogen and oxygen. Both could provide propellant for rocket engines, and the oxygen would also provide air for astronauts to breathe.
No one knows how hard it will be to extract ice; it could be sparsely distributed and mixed with dirt and rocks.
The missions could also deliver prototypes of future telescopes and other scientific instruments.
Unlike past moon programs, which have been designed and operated by NASA, the space agency wants to take a low-cost, high-risk approach.
Thomas Zurbuchen, the associate administrator for NASA’s science directorate, uses a hockey analogy: NASA wants to take many shots on goal, not expecting all of them to score.
Some, maybe most, of these companies will likely fail. But the hope is that effort kick-starts a new industry, essentially a FedEx or U.P.S. to the moon, much like SpaceX got in the business of carrying supplies to the International Space Station at lower cost and was able to use the same rocket for commercial satellite launches. Eventually the companies that succeed could offer services not only to NASA but to companies also wanting to set up shop on the moon.
What is unknown is how skilled these companies are and how good a goalie the moon is at blocking spacecraft.
Kenneth Chang has been at The Times since 2000, writing about physics, geology, chemistry, and the planets. Before becoming a science writer, he was a graduate student whose research involved the control of chaos. @kchangnyt
Trump announces tariffs on all Mexico goods in latest anti-immigration measure
US President Donald Trump has announced tariffs on all goods coming from Mexico in a bid to curb illegal immigration.
In a tweet, Mr Trump said that from 10 June a 5% tariff would be imposed and would slowly rise "until the Illegal Immigration problem is remedied".
President Trump has declared a national emergency to tackle what he claims is a crisis at the US southern border.
Border agents say they are overwhelmed, but critics say they are mishandling and mistreating migrants.
Jesus Seade, Mexico's top diplomat for North America, said the the tariffs would be "disastrous".
"If this is put in place, we must respond vigorously," he told reporters.
During his election campaign and throughout his time in office, President Trump has sought funds to build a wall on the US-Mexico border.
He declared a national emergency in February in an attempt to divert federal funds for a barrier wall, but a judge blocked his efforts in May.
The White House said on Thursday that the president would use the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to implement the new tariffs on Mexico.
The announcement came the same day that the White House told Congress it planned to pursue a new trade deal with Mexico and Canada.
What did Trump announce?
In a White House statement, Mr Trump said the tariffs would rise by 5% each month until October 1, when the rate would reach 25%.
The tariffs would stay at that level "unless and until Mexico substantially stops the illegal inflow of aliens coming through its territory", he said.
"For years, Mexico has not treated us fairly - but we are now asserting our rights as a sovereign Nation," the statement said.
The president also took aim at his Democratic opponents, accusing them of a "total dereliction of duty" over border security.
The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives is taking legal action to halt the Trump administration's efforts to build a border wall, saying it would be a waste of funds and would not stop illegal immigration.
Critics say border agents are taking a heavy-handed approach under the Trump administration to controlling migration at the US-Mexico border, pointing to the deaths of six migrant children in US custody since September.
What will the tariffs affect?
Mexico is known for agricultural products like avocados and tequila, but the country is also a major manufacturing hub and home to many US companies.
The country produces hundreds of thousands of cars every month, and is also home to technology and aerospace companies. It is one of the G20 economies.
US firms Ford, General Motors, John Deere, IBM and Coca Cola all operate in Mexico, as well as thousands of other multinationals.
The president has used tariffs elsewhere in a bid to force through his foreign policy objectives.
After complaining for years about the US trade deficit with China, Mr Trump has imposed tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of goods coming from the country.
