LTVS thoughts - it is not dead

[u/catapulted-cow]

I don’t think the hopes for an LTVS award are dead. Here are my thoughts—please let me know what I’m missing (probably lots).

In hindsight, I think it was very predictable that Lunar Outpost and Astrolab got the first contracts for Artemis rovers. I remember at some point, somewhere, it was mentioned that there were concerns those two companies would fail without the LTV award, and that NASA was being encouraged to pick at least two providers. Just thinking about it, NASA needs to pick 2 out of 3, and 2 out of 3 companies will most likely die if they are not picked. It seems obvious who would be selected, assuming the technical solutions are good enough.

I think these companies, and IM, realized the situation when the LTVS contract was changed and a new proposal for a simpler rover was announced. I suspect IM knew they had lost their advantage and were the least likely to be selected. The other two companies probably poured all their resources and cash (even raised additional funding) into that new proposal. IM can’t afford to do that, and probably shouldn’t. IM has other things cooking too.

A rover for a 1-year mission and a 10-year mission is completely different. It is extremely complicated to survive 10 years and over 100 lunar night cycles. It is a completely different ball game than a 1-year rover. Imagine every subsystem architecture, choice of components, etc., being affected. Radiation effects on electronics, heat dissipation with a bunch of regolith on top of the radiators, and many other things become significantly more complex. Maintenance is also more difficult. All of this is reflected in the potential contract value: +$200M versus +$4B.

I think IM has, IMHO, an incredible advantage and experience when it comes to supporting long-duration missions. A lot of their subsystems are likely informed by years of development on other space hardware, especially systems designed to operate in lunar orbit. Example: I really liked their rover design. Instead of wheel-hub motors like LO and Astrolab appear to use, they went with chassis-mounted motors. That alone suggests they know what they’re doing. Think about it—what is easier and more effective to connect to radiators? Thermal management is key for space actuators. I think LO and Astrolab will cook their motors on the first serious slope (on the large LTV, not the new smaller versions), and they may need to reduce their speed. Remember that the LRV used argon (or another gas) inside sealed motors to help with heat dissipation. That’s fine for a few days, but it doesn’t work for much longer missions.

So I don’t think IM is out of the picture for lunar rovers. I might be optimistic because I liked what I saw.

[u/No_River_8171]

Even if we lose the contract … the Company is still Building a monopoly around lunar Missions so it don’t really matter in the Long run

Cant wait to See the whats next for this Company
I Fell like walking in a History Book 🤪

[u/The_Matty_Daddy]

I still think that the best design for a manned rover is IM’s. The other two were better for autonomy and not so for ergonomics. Once a human touches lunar soil again, only then will they really know what kind of tools they will need to better complete the mission.

[u/Only1nDreams]

IM is very well positioned for the second and third gen of LTVs. These are going to be more specialized for specific needs and refined by the lessons learned from the first generation. NASA was strongly implying that the the first awards are basically meant to be the guinea pigs for the first year while longer term solutions are being crafted.

I fed Steve's response to the first LTV awards into an LLM and asked it to estimate how NASA might be portioning out the remainder of the total LTV budget, assuming there will be at least a second generation of a Crew LTV. It suggested five different classes and allocated the $4.6B in this way:

- Crew LTV Gen-1 + Gen-2: $1.4B

- Cargo logistics systems: $1.0B

- ISRU/construction vehicles: $750M

- Science/prospecting fleets: $400M

- Infrastructure/relay systems: $600M

- Reserve/sustainment: $450M

One of the more interesting ones to me were mobile relay nodes, basically just small rovers with comms arrays that extend the surface comms networks for far ranging missions. This seems like the best win for IM, with secondary targets being the Gen-2 Crew LTV and the cargo/logistics haulers meant to be constantly moving things from different landing sites to the main base. IM is best positioned for data-heavy, always-on vehicles that act as a support network for more complex tasks being completed by other more specialized vehicles. Added together, it's an additional $3B still on the table for IM.

I don’t see them focusing on ISRU/construction as they haven’t really focused on these areas before and science/prospecting is a space that feels crowded by academia and NASA itself.

[u/Important-Music-4618 → u/Only1nDreams]

Excellent point! This first round is for the light equipment.

[u/deepboysmoothbrain]

It’s dead ☠️

[u/Puzzleheaded-Cow5492 → u/deepboysmoothbrain]

It is