When NASA named three finalists in April to compete to build America’s next Moon lander, they shared more than ideas NASA likes. Two of them – Blue Origin and SpaceX - are the most famous of the “New Space” generation of space companies getting a piece of the contract pie historically shared by Boeing, Lockheed Martin and other “legacy companies” in America’s space story.
“Blue,” as it is called informally, is owned and privately funded by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, one of the world’s richest men. The company opened a plant in Huntsville, Ala., to build a new generation of rocket engines earlier this year.
SpaceX was started Elon Musk, another wealthy technology innovater who plans to make spaceflight history with his company May 27 by launching the first American astronauts from American soil on an American rocket in a decade.
Blue and SpaceX are well-known, but the third finalist for the lander contract surprised some people. Dynetics, Inc. of Huntsville, Ala., is what one of its own leaders admits is “not the aerospace and defense company people necessarily think about.”
It looked like a great competition when the announcement was made, and it still would be. But this week’s resignation of NASA’s top human space flight administrator and the circumstances around it have raised questions about the finalist selections.
Associate Administrator Douglas Loverro resigned Monday saying he had made a “mistake” during his short tenure in the post. The only major decision announced during that seven-month tenure was the lander contract finalists, and the Washington Post cited two unnamed sources saying his resignation was spurred “when Loverro broke a rule during NASA’s recent procurement of a spacecraft capable of landing humans on the moon.”
“I took such a risk earlier in the year because I judged it necessary to fulfill our mission,” Loverro said in his resignation statement. “Now, over the balance of time, it is clear that I made a mistake in that choice for which I alone must bear the consequences."
No one outside top NASA brass knows for sure Loverro did and whether it jeopardizes the selection of the three finalists. There is no information available publicly now suggesting problems that might call for a re-compete, but at least one member of Congress is asking for more information. Any delay could make President Trump’s goal of a 2024 Moon landing even harder to achieve.
In an interview with AL.com just before the Loverro resignation, Dynetics’ Robert Wright talked about his company’s pride in taking this next step to space prominence and said his company’s plan can achieve Trump’s goal and more. Wright is the Dynetics HLS program manager and the deputy division manager for Dynetics’ space systems.
Wright said Dynetics’ lander would work “not just for NASA as a customer, but also for commercial customers, as well where we can provide cargo services, payload services (and) commercial rides for tourists or scientists to the lunar service.”
It is a plan that will also mean hundreds of new jobs at Dynetics in Alabama and “thousands of jobs in the final phases of design and manufacture,” Wright told AL.com. Reached this week after Loverro’s resignation, Wright had no comment.
Dynetics and Blue Origin aren’t competing alone but are leading teams in the typical fashion of complex missions. Dynetics is teamed with space company Sierra Nevada, and its crew module would be built by the Italian space company Thales Alenia Space. Blue Origin is partners with Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Draper.
Both companies would launch their landers on a United Launch Alliance Vulcan rocket built in Decatur. SpaceX would launch its Starship as the lander lifted into space by a SpaceX Super Heavy rocket.
Dynetics’ plan is to build a two-part lander, Wright said. The central part is the “descent/ascent element or the DAE” that includes the crew compartment. The second part also includes what Wright called “Modular Propellant Vehicles,” two large tanks that provide extra propellant for the lander.
“As we take the initial descent out of lunar orbit, we’ve got to slow down enough … and that takes a lot of propellant,” Wright said. The plan is to use propellant from the two modular tanks and jettison them partway to the surface, Wright said, and the lander would be for multiple missions to and from the surface.
Blue Origin proposes a three-stage lander that can dock to either the Orion space capsule or the permanent Gateway lunar orbiter before descending and lifting off from the surface. SpaceX will use several Starships to serve as fueling docks, supply vehicles for the dock and for the reusable launch and landing system.
Wright said the advantage of Dynetics’ design is that the expensive and complicated lander doesn’t have to be launched to the Moon for each mission. Only new propellant tanks would be needed. “Just by launching some additional fuel into lunar orbit, we have a much lower recurring mission costs for subsequent missions once those assets are in place,” he said.
Dynetics of Huntsville, Ala., has officially opened this new Aerospace Structures Complex in nearby Decatur to support the development, integration, and structural testing of large aerospace structures. The company says it adds a new feature to Alabama's commercial aerospace capabilities.
Can Dynetics deliver a lander and a more affordable way to fuel multiple missions? Wright answered with a history of the company since 2010, the year Dynetics got serious about civil space and not just its long history in defense contracting.
The company is a subsidiary of the holding company Leidos and led by Dave King, a former director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville. Among other leaders with senior NASA experience is Steve Cook, NASA program manager for the Ares rocket program.
One of Dynetics’ early forays into NASA space was designing and building a popular low-cost satellite from commercial parts called FASTSAT. It’s a program Wright called “hugely successful.” The company also had a NASA contract to help in the bidding for an advanced booster for the Space Launch System, and Wright said his “small and upstart space division was really getting started” then.
“From 2012 all the way through 2016 and ’17, we have been on this path where, on the space side of Dynetics, we have just been continuing to purse more complex and higher responsibility projects based on the performance of the work we’ve done before,” Wright said.
Dynetics led the work of building the Space Launch System core stage pathfinder vehicle, which is a life-size, realistic replica of the core stage that crews use to practice moving the core around facilities and test stands. The company also built core stage simulators for Boeing to use in testing, and it built hardware for critical Space Launch System fuel tank tests at the Marshall center in Huntsville.
“We just continue to grow and build and build on the success we’ve had,” Wright said, “so the human lander was another opportunity for us to take all the work we’ve done … and bring that together in a solution we could offer.”
Even before the Loverro resignation, America’s new Moon program was challenged by the coronavirus pandemic. Dynetics is teleworking now, and Wright said productivity is high. “People are finding new ways to interact and collaborate and meet as needed,” he said. Wright has no doubt Dynetics can deliver.
“When you look at the 45-year history of Dynetics and the talent and the hard problems we’ve solved,” Wright said, “we’ve demonstrated in sector after sector and program after program that we can address hard challenges and problems, we can do them on aggressive schedules and we can do them in new and innovative ways. We are going to bring that entire experience to bear in the Human Lander Program.
“People may not be thinking of Dynetics when it comes to that,” he said, “but they will in time. Because we’re going to perform and demonstrate we’ve earned the right to be where we are and we can solve this hard problem, too.”
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Alabama’s Dynetics is this close to building America’s next moon lander - AL.com
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