The Mother of all CLPS Missions

Let’s review the functioning lunar infrastructure. There’s the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) still taking pictures after a decade, India's Chandryaan-2 Orbiter, and a Chinese satellite at EM-L2 supporting the Tatu-2 rover that is crawling on the Farside. There is also a laser reflector or two still sitting on the lunar surface from the Apollo missions. That’s it, we’re done.

We’re returning to explore the Moon. Do we have Comms? No. Do we have GPS? No. Navigation and Timing? No. Power? No. Landing pad? No. A plan or architecture of the above? I’m not going to say it. But here, let me actually quote from the International Space Exploration Coordination Group (ISECG).

In-Situ Resource Utilization Gap Assessment Report from 04/2021:

At the time of performing the ISRU Gap study and writing this report, an official and internationally accepted human lunar architecture does not exist.

But don’t despair, we have the NASA CLPS missions (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) coming. NASA says the (CLPS) initiative allows rapid acquisition of lunar delivery services from American companies for payloads that advance capabilities for science, exploration, or commercial development of the Moon. Seven missions have been awarded, each bringing about 90 kgs of payload (200 lbs) to the surface for an average cost of $75m.  Oh, and they are all delayed, none have launched yet. 

If you look at the payloads, they are all scientific instruments and other commercial payload which is all well and good but… we still don’t have any infrastructure.

Lunar Pathfinder is a communication satellite that will communicate with spacecraft on the lunar surface and in orbit using S-band and UHF frequencies, then relay those communications to Earth on X-band. It is being built by a British company (SSTL) in cooperation with the European Space Agency (ESA). It is scheduled for launch in 2024.

It has been reported that ESA is working with NASA on an agreement by which NASA would launch and deliver the Lunar Pathfinder into lunar orbit on a US rocket in exchange for data-relay services for their own missions, making NASA one of the first users of Lunar Pathfinder services.   

Here is my wacky scenario which I call the Mother of all CLPS Missions:

In May of 2022, after Starship executes a successful orbital launch, NASA announces it will add a special CLPS mission to launch in late 2024, focused on lunar infrastructure.  The launch vehicle will be a SpaceX Starship (which has already been designated as a CLPS eligible vehicle) and it will launch the Lunar Pathfinder plus four yet-to launch existing CLPS missions.  

Starship payload consists of:

·        Lunar Pathfinder

·        Astrobotic’s Griffin lander headed to the South Pole, Nobile Crater region

·        Intuitive Machines Nova-M lander headed to the South Pole, Shakelton Connecting Ridge

·        Another Intuitive Machines Nova-M lander headed to Oceanus Procellarum

·        Masten’s Xelene lander headed to the North Pole, Peary Crater region

 

 

In December of 2024, a SpaceX Starship launches 50 tons of payload to TLI (trans lunar injection). 

At TLI, Starship deploys the Lunar Pathfinder satellite which attains an Elliptical Lunar Frozen Orbit around the Moon, providing good coverage of both poles with very minimal station-keeping. This is Phase One of a dedicated Lunar Navigation System (LNS). Phase Two will include the Laser Communication Relay which can transmit significantly more data and eventually replace radio frequency communications.

The first lunar lander to deploy is a scaled-up Astrobotic Griffin lunar lander which propels itself to a powered landing at the lunar South Pole northwest of Nobile Crater where it unloads the VIPER rover and other ice investigating instrumentation. The lander is equipped with a GPS ranging beacon. The GPS ranging beacons on each lander will help all subsequent landings with precise lunar location data. The Lunar Pathfinder in orbit above, eliminates the two week per month black-out period where rovers at the pole could not operate because the Moon’s libration causes the pole to shift out of line-of-site communication with Earth. This extends VIPER’s mission capability since it will no longer have to hibernate for two weeks of each month.

The second lander to deploy is the Intuitive Machines Nova-M which hovers near Shakelton crater. Before landing it sprays tiny microcapsules of thermite into the regolith creating a highly exothermic reaction which results in a geopolymerized subsurface landing pad. This landing pad mitigates the plume effects of the lander. Upon landing, a rover navigates to a position on the highest elevation of the Connecting Ridge and extends a solar collector to a height of 40m. (92% sunlight) This rover stores power in a high-capacity battery which can be used to recharge other bots and also powers the attached LNS ranging beacon. Regolith bots set about smoothing and microwave sintering a landing pad for a much larger rocket.

The third lander is also an Intuitive Machines Nova-M lander which lands in Reiner Gamma in Oceanus Procellarum and deploys Lunar Vertex (to map and analyze the natural magnetic field which forms the Reinner Gamma swirl), Cadre rovers and other regolith collection rovers and multiple regolith processing / oxygen production demonstration systems.  

The fourth lander, Masten’s Xelene, hovers near Peary crater. It sprays alumina particles into the engine which melt and then cool within seconds on the lunar regolith, creating a landing pad. It also deploys a solar tower with LNS beacon near the Peak of Eternal Light. (98% sunlight) It unloads the Prime-1 ice drill and three ice-hunting rovers and other instrumentation including a hopping rover with its own propulsion that flies over PSR craters while analyzing its contents with an onboard spectrometer. It also deploys multiple mineral assay rover bots and instruments.

All lunar landers and rovers are outfitted with LNS beacons and cameras which send data to Lunar Pathfinder for relay to Earth.

There are lots of technology demonstrations that don’t have a ride. Basically, we load up everything the landers can carry. We need to start thinking bigger, scaling up, and taking more risk. To make great progress, we need to start failing a little. We can learn from failure.

Note- A fully expended Starship could deliver around 60 tons to TLI in a single launch without re-fueling. If re-fueling is in the mission, the cost would be less and payload higher.