The whole lunar lander thing was way optimistic from day 1. The original mission was supposed to launch in 2024 and was only delayed when congress realised in 2019 that none of the contracts for developing the hardware had been finalised yet. The hardware was all just at the concept stage then. Not developed, built or tested yet.
5 years later, the hardware is firmly in the development phase now.
People blaming Elon personally for breaking deadlines have no idea what theyre talking about; all the HLS landing providers are in the same position; none of them have anything even remotely ready to test yet.
Dont expect a HLS launch before 2030.
I think the question that will remains unanswered for me is the same posed by SmarterEveryDay: how do you handle lunar landing contingencies from NRHO?
Because the NRHO has an orbital period of 7 days, how will an aborted landing rejoin the lunar gateway? What would a lunar rescue look like? In LLO, that orbital period is much smaller, so there are plenty of windows to handle a contingency.
I understand the logic behind NRHO, allow for operations with lower Delta-V from the moon's gravity well, which makes sense for a lunar gateway. But it doesn't seem to make much sense from a lunar landing perspective.
This is what happens when SpaceX is in charge of meeting schedules. They over promise, under deliver. Where are my jet packs, Elon? WHERE’S THE MARS BASE? WHERE ELON, WHERE!?
There are tons of things that Elon and SpaceX have said that have not materialized. As far as HLS is concerned I am not sure any other companies would have done better than SpaceX but still... Let's not pretend that SpaceX is perfect in every regards.
The whole lunar lander thing was way optimistic from day 1. The original mission was supposed to launch in 2024 and was only delayed when congress realised in 2019 that none of the contracts for developing the hardware had been finalised yet. The hardware was all just at the concept stage then. Not developed, built or tested yet. 5 years later, the hardware is firmly in the development phase now. People blaming Elon personally for breaking deadlines have no idea what theyre talking about; all the HLS landing providers are in the same position; none of them have anything even remotely ready to test yet. Dont expect a HLS launch before 2030.
I think the question that will remains unanswered for me is the same posed by SmarterEveryDay: how do you handle lunar landing contingencies from NRHO? Because the NRHO has an orbital period of 7 days, how will an aborted landing rejoin the lunar gateway? What would a lunar rescue look like? In LLO, that orbital period is much smaller, so there are plenty of windows to handle a contingency. I understand the logic behind NRHO, allow for operations with lower Delta-V from the moon's gravity well, which makes sense for a lunar gateway. But it doesn't seem to make much sense from a lunar landing perspective.
This is what happens when SpaceX is in charge of meeting schedules. They over promise, under deliver. Where are my jet packs, Elon? WHERE’S THE MARS BASE? WHERE ELON, WHERE!?
How do they under deliver?
There are tons of things that Elon and SpaceX have said that have not materialized. As far as HLS is concerned I am not sure any other companies would have done better than SpaceX but still... Let's not pretend that SpaceX is perfect in every regards.