Artemis to the surface lunar by 2024.

NASA is studying the addition of an Orion rendezvous demonstration to the Artemis 2 test flight to reduce overall mission risks to the subsequent Artemis 3 lunar landing from first-time operations. The Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate (HEOMD) is working with its Artemis Programs to evaluate some of the trade-offs from a range of options for an early rendezvous test for the spacecraft on its first crewed mission, such as what the rendezvous target would be and where in the mission the demonstration would take place. Taking another look at Artemis 2 mission objectives is a part of a recent re-examination of how to meet the goal of landing of U.S. astronauts on the Moon again by the end of 2024. No decisions have been made yet, but favored options would stage the demonstrations early in Artemis 2 with minimal impact to existing, baselined objectives.

Early concepts for the Artemis 3 lunar landing mission included a complex sequence of Gateway, Human Landing System (HLS), and Orion launches and dockings, with multiple mission-critical activities being executed for the first time. HEOMD is looking to reduce mission dependencies, spacecraft complexities, and first-flight operations from Artemis 3.

Moving rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO) development up to be tested on Artemis 2 would provide additional opportunities to test the system and to incorporate lessons learned from the demonstration before it is essential to mission success on Artemis 3.

Considering rendezvous demonstration for Artemis 2 crewed test flight

NASA plans three Artemis missions to achieve the goal announced in March, 2019, of landing two U.S. astronauts on the Moon by the end of 2024. Two test flights of the agency’s Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System (SLS) rocket would precede the landing that would culminate the third mission.

Currently targeting launch late next year, Artemis 1 is a four to six week long uncrewed test that includes the first SLS launch which will send Orion on its first solo flight into a Distant Retrograde Orbit (DRO) of the Moon. Artemis 2 is currently baselined as a week and a half long crewed test flight for Orion.

Likely to fly no earlier than 2023, Orion would stay in Earth orbit on Artemis 2 for the first forty-two hours of the mission to fully demonstrate the capabilities of the spacecraft’s environmental control and life support system (ECLSS) that will be flying for the first time with a crew of four astronauts. A lunar flyby would follow one short and one long orbit around Earth.

In-Situ Resource Utilization Capabilities, Sustainability

“Advancing in Situ Resources Utilization Capabilities To Achieve a New Paradigm in Space Exploration”, defines In-Situ Resource Utilization “(ISRU) as involving any hardware or operation that harnesses and utilizes ‘in-situ’ resources to create products and services for robotic and human exploration. (page 1) “In Situ” refers to resources found at the site of the exploration which are not carried to the site by spacecraft. Some of the main advantages of  ISRU resources is reducing the cost of launches by optimizing propulsion, reducing launch/landing mass, to create new products, improve our infrastructure, and decrease crew health related mission risks. ISRU products do not require resupply missions, are more efficient, self sustainable, and extend the range for NASA’s missions to the Moon and Mars. Table 1 from the article illustrates the impact of ISRU in terms of propulsion, life support, habitat, mobility, and power.   

Why is this a big deal? Sustainability practices are the future for Earth, Mars, and the Moon. Using Regolith, we can improve our life on Earth by utilizing our resources in a variety of uses. Regolith can be used to make a radiation shield for the ROV, and allow the ROV to fix its own damages with the help of 3D printing mechanisms. 

ISRU can be used to improve existing propulsion systems. As the propulsion system relates to ISRU, ISRU can provide the ability to generate propellants using either sent materials or utilizing space resources. If we could 3D print propellants and generate pressure vessels, we can conceivably manufacture rocket propulsion devices on the Moon. The greatest challenge in 3D printing propellant is that it’s highly flammable. The use of other processes in the production of propellant would be much safer, because it is easier to avoid overheating propellant. 

The article, “System Architecture Design and Development for a Reusable Lunar Lander” exhibits the propulsion design in Gateway. In the design of Gateway, the propulsion system is reusable, using liquid propellant. A pressure-fed system and a pump-fed system uses nitrogen or helium to create movement using the pressure. It works by pushing “the propellant down to the combustion chamber, where it is ignited and exhausted. These types of systems are very reliable for small changes in velocity due to the simplicity of the design.” The design would have to be able to handle extreme amounts of pressure. Also the propellant design could greatly support in situ transportation operations, as mentioned in the Advanced ISRU article: ”Making propellants and establishing surface and potentially orbital propellant depots can also support and enable surface hoppers, reusable landers, and cis-lunar transportation systems,” thus reducing the amount of flight trips, and providing a tremendous reduction in life cycle costs. 

Life Support: Human Explorations and Operations Mission Directorate HEOMD focuses on the “Moxie” Mars Oxygen Isru Experiment, which can convert oxygen using Mars’ atmosphere. This would result in a reduction of the mass of the rocket, due to the decrease in oxygen tank requirements. Understanding how to create oxygen from Mars' atmosphere also makes us more independent in our conquest of Mars. The Resource Prospector mission (RP), uses a land rover, with ISRU capabilities. RP helps attain a further goal of spending more time on Mars/Moon to “perform a low cost mission to a near-permanently shadowed location at a lunar polar location to perform the first ‘ground-truth’ measurement of water and other volatile resources.”(page 7) The RP mission helps us better understand future explorations in the conquest of regolith. 

Habitat: Using regolith as a way to manufacture and construct elements to create radiation protection, also known as radiation shielding used in infrastructure. Using ISRU resources, radiation shielding can be created to help with maintenance and repair of other systems that need the protection. Advancing situ article points out the advantage of using this for habitat “ in case(s) of life support system or logistic delivery failure, radiation shielding not possible with Earth delivered options, feedstock production for in situ manufacturing of replacement parts, and propellant production to eliminate leakage or increased boiloff issues.”(page 3) This is a clear advancement in situ feedstock manufacturing (proving this may be difficult).

Mobility:  “Hoppers” are an important part of extending surface travel. The “Advancing in Situ” article states, “ these hoppers could be one-way, i.e. refueling the original delivery lander to hop to another location, or two-way where hoppers could be fueled to travel to a destination, perform science and take samples, and return to a centralize base location (Hub-and-Spoke surface architecture).” thus allowing more mobility, and providing a redundant base for resources and energy storage. In the event of a catastrophic failure, the operation can continue and it's not a complete loss in scientific exploration. 

Power: storage and regeneration using thermal cycling (energy) or radioisotope power systems is a better alternative to solar power. Operations cannot be dependent on solar energy. The difficulties of solar energy do not allow operations to be done in the shadow condition. In advance, relying on thermal or radioisotope power would avoid the troubles of worrying about dust storms blocking up solar arrays. Solar panels can be used for redundant power supply. Supplementing a solar array but a backup battery use would be more beneficial in more difficult climates. 

The “Ionic Liquid Facilitated Recovery of Metals and Oxygen from Regolith” article shows the importances of retaining regolith. Regolith is made up of useful material such as Oxygen, Silicon, Aluminum, Iron, Magnesium, and Calcium. Elements that are needed for ISRU utilization. The process of recycling these metals is done by using the process of  electroplating. 

For example, a metal-like substance called Nickel Chromium Alloy (can be found in iron meteorites), is used for heating elements’. This substance is temperature resistant, and can be used to create structures. Nickel Chromium Alloy can be recycled and can be electroplated, to form as a sheet and be used as a thermal protection against the sun, to avoid corrosion. Bulk electroplating is used to recycle the metal by using electrolysis. The disadvantage of this process is the energy needed to perform needs full heat capacity, meaning it can not perform as well in shadow regions. These metals are dependent on this process. Luckily, we can use Ionic liquids(organic salts) as a potential source to shape metals in room temperature. The challenges that come from collecting regolith as stated in the presentation is that “these materials are found in highly stable oxides.” To process regolith, it would require recovering the elements back into their original and pure elemental form, and  require “processing these oxides to recover high purity materials.”The disadvantages that come with this process can be highly abbassive to RP because they require lots of chemicals in use, heat, and a tremendous amount of energy to achieve final pure substances.

The article “Lunar Prospecting: Searching for Volatiles at the South Pole”,  demonstrates the challenges from the Resource Prospector (RP) mission. The RP mission includes “a rover for mobility, prospecting instruments to locate and characterize volatiles, a drill to collect regolith samples, and an in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) payload for analysis.” in the lunar polar location in order to deposit measurements of water and volatile sources. The RP main goal is to prospect, acquire or gather, then process the feasible materials found. The Impact of RP is the reduced risk of human exploration. Some of the mission strategic knowledge gaps include, lunar cold traps, detecting volatile species, inconsistent irregular patterns of water, and  “the mineralogical, elemental, molecular, isotopic makeup of the volatiles” as well as 

“ the lunar surface trafficability”(page 1). The RP poses an uncertainty in real time science. The article states “uncertainty introduced by the communications networks and the DSN make this infeasible” (page 4), making it harder to complete “real time” science.  Improving antenna signals, could do so much more with ISRU, as well as adding an antenna to the “hub of the hopper” using the shielding material of lunar regolith. 

 How does “real-time science” influence the path and the timing of the planned operation system of the lunar rover, Resource Prospector, to prospect, collect, and process in-situ resources on the Moon?

“Real time science” refers to the ability to make decisions in the moment, near time. Data has a relay. The data from a rover is communicated through orbiters which relay using X band radio waves,  then that information is passed on to the Deep Space Network (DSN) on Earth, which uses antennas to capture the messages. Raw data has to be then translated. The Lunar article shows how data in RP is relayed in space, “Previous testing has shown that a rover can be teleoperated manually with a short round trip delay of up to ten seconds, though even at that delay operators preferred waypoint driving. Delays in the tens of seconds make direct teleoperation driving unsafe, as the rover may crash before the operator sees the crater it is falling into.”, this makes it dangerous to drive using teleop mode, therefore the robot has to use both teleop and autonomous modes in order to travel safely. An advantage of RP, is that it has no sleep times or distance limitations. RP has to find feasible material, gather it, then process in situ. 

In prospecting, RP has to use pre planned navigation, using “ relatively fixed predetermined paths (rails) between the science stations, with adjustments made in near real-time for rover safety.”(page 4), because of this, rover data relays take longer to receive to the Deep Space Network. This is because distance signals take longer to travel in space, rover control takes fatal delays to react to the surrounding environment. In order to complete “real time science”, it requires tactical planning, pre programming in autonomous mode because of the time delay. Developing AI autonomous mode would reduce natural time delay. In autonomous mode, operators must preprogram to avoid collision. For decisions to be made at the moment, the rover must be able to stop when finding the material and wait for the operator to respond. As the voyages become more successful, the rover should be able to drive for itself.  Real time science is better than the alternatives because we waste less time and resources, explore more, and optimize the lifespan of our rovers, making voyages more flexible. As explained in the lunar article “the real-time scientist would have the option to call for a halt and further investigation if they see the rover is driving over a spot that is significantly higher in water concentration than previous areas.” (page 4) From there, the RP creates a known path, more success in RP’s travels will result in RP to meet a closer goal of driving with “real time.”

 Stated in Ionic Liquid Facilitated Recovery of Metals and Oxygen from Regolith, “An Ionic liquid-based process to recover metals and oxygen from regolith has been developed and demonstrated that could make resupply of chemical reagents negligible.” What is the closed-loop ionic liquid (IL) reprotonization process, and what are the benefits of this process to future space exploration?

In oxygen reduction, extreme heat is used to separate materials. In regolith, in order to keep oxygen from reacting, a constant amount of heat is necessary. The oxygen would have to be oxidized, while the metals would get reduced. The benefits of doing this process would be attaining these elements and reusing them on site. When exposed to oxygen, metals will oxidize in the state of metal oxide. The ionic liquid can be liquidized (except for sand) using oxidation reduction, allowing it to retain back to high pure metal by itself. Closed loop refers to recycling the purity of the substance, so that way you can constantly reuse the chemicals. 

Closed-loop ionic liquid (IL) reprotonization is useful for mining and refining tasks in space where either satellites or installations can use a compact system to harvest and refine precious materials. Reducing waste material to optimize space and weight within small satellites and installations, they make the process of  gathering valuable material like platinum, for either furthering the lifespan of an installation or bringing valuable materials back to Earth.

Regolith mentioned in the article, includes sources for solar energy, cement applications for infracture, and life support. Metals are critical for building trusses to support livable structures, resupplying deep space expeditions for maintenance/repair, and oxygen is incredibly useful for sustaining human life far from Earth. Common metal refining processes use heat or fire which is incredibly dangerous in closed ships and pose an expensive refining cost for ship crew. The benefits of this process to help future space exploration, by potentially supplying a limitless and autonomous method of preparing raw material for 3D printers in space. The initial investment of rover engineering durable parts and shipping supplies from Earth can be extremely expensive so having the capacity to manufacture parts outside of Earth can be incredibly lucrative. We can completely recycle the metal-like materials. An important step toward von neumann probes, is self replicating probes. Manufacturing spare parts out of metals found from regolith can extend life span rovers and missions. An alternative to using ISRU resources is sending elements that can be recycled and harder to find in space, elements like Nickel Chromium Alloy, which can be completely recycled. A one time send is required if it's reusable.  In order to make waste material viable again, we can build refinery facilities using RP and situ manufacturing to gather and build recycling systems respectively. Rovers are ideal for resource gathering being deployed in large numbers and with simple autonomous control, they can scour the expanse of space or aboard the same ship for resources. Then these rovers can deliver these materials to CNC machines either to 3D print, mill, assemble, and so forth. These raw materials can be reused back into viable material for use once again.  Waste material can be used to also generate fertilizer, refine vitamin supplements for bone mass supplement. Rovers are ideal in terraforming oxygen, making robots handle the preparation of ready in use oxygen on Mars or the Moon, a tremendous contribution for life support in space. This is also the basic principle behind von neuman probes or self replicating probes which are economical in reducing waste material. ISRU is a step forward toward sustainability goals, benefiting resource utilization here on Earth.

Sources:

  NCAS Subject Matter Lecture Susan Martinez, Additive Manufacturing Engineer NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center Huntsville, AL (2020).

Advancing in situ resource utilization capabilities to achieve a new paradigm in space exploration.Sanders (2018).

 Lunar Prospecting: Searching for Volatiles at the South Pole Trimble & Carvalho (2016).

 Ionic liquid facilitated recovery of metals and oxygen from regolith. Karr, Curreri, Thornton, Depew, Vankeuren, Regelman, Fox, Marone, Donovan & Paley (2018).

System Architecture Design and Development for a Reusable Lunar Lander.Batten, Bergin, Crigger, & McGlothin (2019).

First SLS launch likely to slip to 2022

https://sciencespies.com/space/first-sls-launch-likely-to-slip-to-2022/

First SLS launch likely to slip to 2022

WASHINGTON — A top NASA official says the agency will soon set a target launch date for the first Space Launch System mission, but that it’s “more than likely” it will slip into early 2022.

Speaking at a Maryland Space Business Roundtable webinar Sept. 30, NASA Associate Administrator Bob Cabana said a firm date for the launch of the Artemis 1 mission hadn’t been set, but suggested it was unlikely to take place before the end of this year.

“I’ll get you a firm date on that hopefully after next week. We’ll set an initial date after the team comes and briefs us on where we are,” he said. “We’ll be flying this Artemis 1 mission hopefully, more than likely, early next year.”

NASA officials have been holding out hope that Artemis 1 could still launch before the end of the year, although they were increasingly hedging their bets. “Artemis 1 will be at the end of this year or the first part of next year,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a call with reporters Sept. 21.

Cabana said workers just completed the night before “modal testing” of the SLS, where the vehicle is subjected to vibrations to determine its natural frequencies. The next milestone is the installation of the Orion spacecraft, taking the place of a mass simulator currently on top of the rocket. He said the Orion spacecraft will be moved to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at the Kennedy Space Center Oct. 13 to be integrated onto the SLS.

Once in place, the entire stack will be rolled out to Launch Complex 39B for a wet dress rehearsal, where the core stage is filled with liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen in a practice countdown that stops just before ignition of the stage’s four RS-25 engines. After that, the rocket will roll back to the VAB for any final work and reviews before going back to the pad for launch.

Asked later in the presentation to give his best guess for both the Artemis 1 launch date as well as future Artemis missions, he declined, citing the upcoming briefing. “Next week, Jim Free and Kathy [Lueders] are coming to brief me and the rest of the team up here on all of the work they were doing at Kennedy this week,” he said. “Hopefully, we’ll have some realistic dates for where we’re going to hit these missions as we go forward. So stand by.”

NASA named Free its new associate administrator for exploration systems development Sept. 21, part of a restructuring that split the former Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate (HEOMD) into two organizations. Lueders, who previously was in charge of HEOMD, is now associate administrator for space operations, responsible for the International Space Station and related programs.

Cabana endorsed the reorganization because it offered a “more focused look” on exploration programs in particular. “He’s just a great engineer and an outstanding program manager,” he said of Free, who returned to the agency from the private sector to lead the new exploration directorate. “It’s going to be his focus to deliver the systems we need to execute Artemis and a sustainable return to the moon, and then to continue to move us on to Mars.”

#Space

Abstract: This report is intended to help NASA program and project managers incorporate Small Business Innovation Research Small Business Technology Transfer (SBIR/STTR) technologies into NASA Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate (HEOMD) projects. Other Government and commercial projects managers can also find this useful. Space Transportation; Life Support and Habitation Systems; Extra-Vehicular Activity; High EfficiencySpace Power; Human Exploration and Operations Mission, from New NASA STI Report Series https://go.nasa.gov/2qcwdJi

Supply chain, Artemis program limit SLS use for science missions

https://sciencespies.com/space/supply-chain-artemis-program-limit-sls-use-for-science-missions/

Supply chain, Artemis program limit SLS use for science missions

WASHINGTON — A limited supply chain and the demands of the Artemis program will prevent the use of the Space Launch System for alternative roles, such as launching science missions, until at least late this decade.

In a briefing about the SLS to the steering committee of the planetary science decadal survey July 7, Robert Stough of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center said that if scientists are contemplating missions that require the use of the SLS, they should be talking with NASA now to secure manifest slots no earlier than the late 2020s or early 2030s.

“Given the demands of the Artemis program between now and the late 2020s,” he said, “it’s going to be very difficult to squeeze a science mission in that time frame.”

While NASA has a goal of being able to launch three SLS missions in a 24-month period, and two in 12 months, the supply chain is currently limited to one SLS per year. That will change by the early 2030s, he said, growing to two per year and thus creating opportunities for additional SLS missions beyond the Artemis program. That will be enabled by changes to at the Michoud Assembly Facility to increase core stage production and a “block upgrade” to the RS-25 engine used on that core stage that will be cheaper and faster to produce.

NASA also expects to shift to the Block 2 versions of the SLS by the late 2020s. The Block 2 will be based on the Block 1B version, with the larger Exploration Upper Stage, to be introduced on the fourth SLS mission, but will replace the existing five-segment solid rocket boosters with a new design that will further increase the vehicle’s performance.

The performance of the SLS is of interest to scientists proposing missions to the outer solar system in particular. The SLS Block 2 will be able to send payloads of nearly 10 tons directly to Jupiter, and nearly as much to Saturn with a Jupiter gravity assist. The use of additional stages, such as versions of the Centaur, can double that payload, as well as enable direct missions to Uranus and Neptune.

NASA is continuing to study various SLS upper stage configuration options to support such missions, he said, along with what would be needed to certify the SLS for carrying the radioisotope power sources required for missions in the outer solar system. However, Stough said that if proposed missions wanted to use SLS, they needed to start discussions with the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate (HEOMD) now to secure a spot on the manifest in roughly a decade.

“While the manifest for SLS is not fully established for the 2030s or the late 2020s, I would say right now is the optimal time to engage with HEOMD to make sure that these missions get on the docket,” he said.

That may be difficult since it’s not clear what missions NASA will pursue that would require, or could benefit from, an SLS launch. The ongoing planetary science decadal, which will provide recommendations on the highest priority missions for the next decade, won’t be completed until the spring of 2022, and NASA will take some time to decide which recommended missions to implement and when.

Stough said NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has shown an interest for using SLS for the Mars Sample Return campaign, but the next mission in that effort, the Sample Retrieval Lander, is scheduled for launch as soon as 2026.

The experience of Europa Clipper offers a cautionary tale for those seeking to launch missions on SLS. Congress for several years directed NASA to use SLS for the mission, allowing the spacecraft to get to Jupiter several years faster than if launched on alternative vehicles. NASA fought that directive, arguing that using a commercially procured launch vehicle would be less expensive and free up the SLS for the early Artemis missions.

Congress relented in the fiscal year 2021 appropriations bill, but only after NASA warned of a potential torsional loading issue if the Europa Clipper spacecraft was launched on SLS. NASA is now in the process of buying a commercial launch for Europa Clipper.

That issue came up during the steering committee meeting, particularly after Stough emphasized the “benign launch loads” of the SLS. He said later that, because of work already underway to analyze the initial Artemis missions, engineers decided to use “very conservative” limits when examining Europa Clipper to streamline the analysis.

“We didn’t understand that that was going to cause a problem for Europa Clipper,” he said, but could have been corrected. “It really was a nonissue at the end of the day.”

Another issue for those considering SLS is the cost of the vehicle. Stough took issue with some cost estimates for the vehicle. “The cost numbers you hear in the media are typically inflated,” he said, by taking into account fixed costs. He didn’t give specific examples, but some estimates assume an SLS cost of $2 billion each, based on the program’s annual budget and flight rate.

Asked for his estimate of SLS costs, he said “we are close to $1 billion per launch right now.” He projected that to decrease by 20 to 30% by the early 2030s as the flight rate increases.

#Space

Abstract: NASA has begun a process to identify and discuss candidate locations where humans could land, live and work on the martian surface. This process is being carried out as a cooperative effort by NASA's Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate (HEOMD), responsible for future human mission preparations, and the Science Mission Directorate (SMD), responsible for the on-going Mars Exploration Program of robotic vehicles in orbit and on the surface of Mars. Both of these Directorates hav... from New NASA STI https://go.nasa.gov/2p2DEQe