The Lockheed Martin Lunar Lander is a series of design concepts by

Lockheed Martin The Lockheed Martin Corporation is an American aerospace, arms, defense, information security, and technology corporation with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta in March 1995. It ...

for a crewed lunar lander. The first proposal, Mars-Precursor Lunar Lander is a reusable crewed lunar lander first unveiled in October 2018, and it is being proposed to

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

for funding and fabrication. NASA specified that it would wait until 2024 to decide the date and method for a crewed lunar lander, and have hinted at seeking a crewed lander no heavier than . The reusable lander would enable sustainable lunar surface exploration. The second proposal, revealed on 10 April 2019, is a 2-stage lander proposed to meet Vice President

Mike Pence Michael Richard Pence (born June 7, 1959) is an American politician who served as the 48th vice president of the United States from 2017 to 2021 under President Donald Trump. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as the 50th ...

's challenge to return humans to the Moon by 2024. Both proposals are based on

Orion spacecraft Orion (officially Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle or Orion MPCV) is a Reusable spacecraft, partially reusable crewed spacecraft used in NASA's Artemis program. The spacecraft consists of a Crew Module (CM) space capsule designed by Lockheed ...

's hardware, and are designed to take astronauts from the

Lunar Gateway The Lunar Gateway, or simply Gateway, is the first planned extraterrestrial space station in lunar orbit intended to serve as a solar-powered communication hub, science laboratory, and short-term habitation module for government-agency astr ...

— a proposed habitat that NASA plans to build in orbit around the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...

— to the lunar surface and advance technology needed to explore

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury (planet), Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Mars (mythology), Roman god of war. Mars is a terr ...

Overview

In 2016, Lockheed Martin announced their architecture concepts for a crewed Mars mission and related vehicles that include the Mars Base Camp (a crewed orbiting Mars station), the

, and the Mars Ascent/Descent Vehicle (MADV). Lockheed Martin hopes that the lunar activities will help develop precursor infrastructure and experience for a Mars expedition. The crewed lunar lander, if built, would be used to develop the Mars MADV lander. The lunar lander concept was presented in October 2018, and it envisions a single-stage, fully reusable lander system capable of taking off to return to the orbiting

. The initial concept would accommodate a crew of four and approximately of cargo payload on the surface for up to two weeks before returning to the Gateway without refueling on the surface. After a surface mission, it would return to the Gateway, where it can be refueled, serviced, and then kept docked to the orbiting Gateway until the next surface mission. Because the Moon lacks an atmosphere, the lander would not have to endure the heat and ablation during atmospheric re-entry, which expands its service time and reduces significantly the labor and costs of refurbishment. Many of its key systems, including the crew pressure vessel, avionics, life support, communications, controls, and navigation systems, were already developed for the new

Concept of operations

The Mars-Precursor Lunar Lander would be a single-stage reusable vehicle able to transport a crew of 4, up to one ton () of usable cargo, and operate for up to 2 weeks on the lunar surface before returning to the lunar orbiting Gateway for refuelling and service. The lander would be able to land anywhere on the Moon, including the lunar poles as well as lower latitude sites on the lunar far side. The vehicle's operational lifetime would be between 4 and 10 flights.

Preliminary specifications

The Mars-Precursor Lunar Lander would be tall, making it twice as tall as the

Apollo Lunar Module The Apollo Lunar Module (LM ), originally designated the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM), was the lunar lander spacecraft that was flown between lunar orbit and the Moon's surface during the United States' Apollo program. It was the first crewed ...

used during the Apollo missions. It would have an elevator to get the crew down from the cabin to the surface. The lander concept envisions the use of the pressure vessel of the

, and some of Orion's existing systems such as life support, controls, and some avionics, so Lockheed Martin officials think that construction time would be relatively short. Its proposed four engines are a variant of the

RL10 The RL10 is a liquid-fuel cryogenic rocket engine built in the United States by Aerojet Rocketdyne that burns cryogenic liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants. Modern versions produce up to of thrust per engine in vacuum. Three RL10 ve ...

that uses the bi-propellant

liquid oxygen Liquid oxygen—abbreviated LOx, LOX or Lox in the aerospace, submarine and gas industries—is the liquid form of molecular oxygen. It was used as the oxidizer in the first liquid-fueled rocket invented in 1926 by Robert H. Goddard, an applica ...

liquid hydrogen Liquid hydrogen (LH2 or LH2) is the liquid state of the element hydrogen. Hydrogen is found naturally in the molecular H2 form. To exist as a liquid, H2 must be cooled below its critical point of 33 K. However, for it to be in a fully li ...

, generating an estimated impulse (

delta-v Delta-''v'' (more known as "change in velocity"), symbolized as ∆''v'' and pronounced ''delta-vee'', as used in spacecraft flight dynamics, is a measure of the impulse per unit of spacecraft mass that is needed to perform a maneuver such as ...

) of .

References

External links

Lander animation

Lander illustrations

homepage at Lockheed Martin {{Moon spacecraft Crewed spacecraft Exploration of the Moon Lunar Gateway Proposed space probes Lunar Lander

Overview

Concept of operations

Preliminary specifications

See also

References

External links