How to reach the Moon … the report estimates that the cancellation of the SLS rocket, its ground systems, Orion and the Maankgateway NASA would save $ 5.25 billion a year. The authors present different architectures for a lunar lander who would be ready earlier and would be compatible with existing rockets. This includes a new plan to use crew Dragon, with legs, like a lander. It is not clear how much impact the report will have, because the congress seems to want to fly the SLS indefinitely, and the Trump administration tries to cancel the rocket after two more flights.
NASA is finally interested in Droogdepots. This week the Marshall Space Flight Center from NASA posted an update that noticed its recent work in the field of developing and testing technology to manage cryogenic driving gases in space. Teams in the field center in Huntsville, Alabama, tested an innovative approach to achieve zero boiloff storage of liquid hydrogen storage with the help of two stages of active cooling, which could prevent the loss of valuable driving gas. “Technologies for reducing the loss of floating gas must be implemented for successful long -term missions to deep space such as the Moon and Mars,” said Kathy Henkel, acting manager of NASA's Cryogenic Fluid Management Portfolio Project, based on NASA Marshall.
As long as this had been done … This is great, clear, because long -term storage of liquid floating gases such as oxygen, hydrogen and methane is crucial for the strategies of SpaceX, Blue Origin and other companies that work on developing reusable and more cost -effective vehicles for the transport of space. However, it is somewhat ironic to see NASA and Marshall promote this work after it had been suppressed by the US senator Richard Shelby, the Alabama Republican for ten years. As Ars reported earlier, Shelby Nasa stated to protect the space system to end his work on the storage and transfer of cryogenic driving gases, so far that he would dismiss everyone who used the word 'depot'. Well, we will say: Depot.
Next three launches
August 1: Falcon 9 | Crew-11 | Kennedy Space Center, Florida | 15:43 UTC
August 2: Electron | Jake 4 Suborbital flight | Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia | 01:45 UTC
August 4: Falcon 9 | Starlink 10-30 | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida | 04:11 UTC
