Moon News  
NASA Awards Contracts For Design Study Of Lunar Landing Craft

Altair lunar lander concept.
by Staff Writers
Houston TX (SPX) Mar 20, 2008
NASA's Constellation Program has selected five space-related companies to receive contract awards for a 210-day study to independently evaluate NASA's in-house design concept for a lunar lander that will deliver four astronauts to the surface of the moon by 2020.

The awards total approximately $1.5 million, with a maximum individual award of $350,000. The study recommendations will be used to increase the technical maturity of the existing design in preparation for the development of vehicle requirements.

The Constellation Program is building NASA's next generation fleet of spacecraft -- including the Ares I and Ares V rockets, the Orion crew capsule and the Altair lunar lander -- to send humans beyond low Earth orbit and back to the moon. NASA plans to establish a human outpost on the moon through a successive series of lunar missions.

"These studies will provide valuable input for developing a sound set of requirements for the Altair lunar lander," said Jeff Hanley, the Constellation Program manager at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. "Industry collaboration will provide insight for our planning and early design efforts for the spacecraft."

The selected companies are Andrews Space of Seattle, The Boeing Co. of Houston, Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company of Denver, Northrop Grumman Corporation of El Segundo, Calif., and Odyssey Space Research of Houston.

The companies will evaluate the current in-house design, propose safety improvements and recommend industry-government partnering arrangements.

The Constellation Program is based at Johnson and manages the Altair Project for NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate, Washington.

Community
Email This Article
Comment On This Article

Related Links
NASA's Constellation Program
Mars News and Information at MarsDaily.com
Lunar Dreams and more



Memory Foam Mattress Review
Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily
XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News


NASA prepares for Moonbuggy Race
Huntsville, Ala. (UPI) Mar 13, 2008
The U.S. space agency is transforming part of its Marshall Space Flight Center into a lunar landscape for the 15th annual Great Moonbuggy Race.







  • Sci-fi guru Clarke dies in Sri Lanka
  • Korea's first astronaut hopes to make peace with North
  • Boomerang works in space: Japanese astronaut
  • First Korean astronaut 'honoured' about space mission

  • Salt Deposits May Have Evidence Of Life On Mars
  • Mars Express Reveals Volcanic Past Of The Red Planet
  • Women Drivers On Mars
  • HiRISE Discovers A Possibly Once-Habitable Ancient Mars Lake

  • Nuclear Power In Space - Part 2
  • Outside View: Nuclear future in space
  • Nuclear Power In Space

  • Methane Spotted On Extrasolar Planet
  • Spitzer Finds Organics And Water Where New Planets May Grow
  • The Planets In Planetary Nebulae
  • Astronomers Find Grains Of Sand Around Distant Stars

  • Electrical fields change gold nanoclusters
  • Nano-scale structures made from DNA: study
  • Carnegie Mellon Researchers Create Invisibiity Cloak
  • Lensless X-ray nanotechnique is developed

  • Microscopic Astronauts To Go Back In Orbit
  • Astronauts collect blood for immune study
  • Spaceflight Shown To Alter Ability Of Bacteria To Cause Disease
  • Cardiovascular System Gets Lazy In Space

  • Cape Canaveral Airmen Launch Delta II Rocket
  • Pratt And Whitney Rocketdyne Rocket Engine Powers Latest GPS Satellite Into Space
  • ProStar GPS Guides Players At Arizona Golf Resort
  • United Launch Alliance Launches Delta 2 For US Air Force GPS Replacement Satellite

  • European Space Truck Jules Verne In Parking Orbit
  • New Purdue Facility Aims To Improve NASA Moon Rocket Engine
  • Space X Falcon 9 Facing More Delays As Shuttle Replacement Looms
  • SpaceX Completes Qualification Testing Of Falcon 1 Merlin Regeneratively Cooled Engine

  • The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2007 - SpaceDaily.AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any Web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement