Lunar Lander Extensibility – Blue Origin

Lunar Lander Extensibility – Blue Origin

This project, sponsored by the Aerospace Corporation, focuses on the design and optimization of a responsive constellation of satellites, which may move between Global Observation Mode and Regional Observation Mode in response to events of interest. By allowing satellites to maneuver on-demand, high revisit frequencies may be achieved to cover a changing target location over the constellation’s lifetime. Current areas of work include adapting this constellation design to track mobile targets such as hurricanes, integrating low thrust maneuver capability, and understanding how this constellation’s performance and cost may compare to other mission architectures like responsive launch.

Upmass can be reduced by investing in low effective emissivity MLI technology (case 2) and in efficient 20K cryocoolers (case 3a). The resulting upmass reduction can be traded for increased payload (case 4). Fuel cells (case 3b), are an alternative to cryocoolers, trading the reduced mass saving for greater operational flexibility provided to power and life support. Impact of water ISRU (case 5) shown separately.