Lockheed Martin

Lockheed Martin

Lockheed Martin

We connect customers with integrated solutions & predictive technologies to ensure they stay ahead of emerging threats.

Created: 2020-05-16

Updated: 2024-03-02

Company - Lockheed Martin

Founded
Country
1912
USA
Funding
Yes, ?
Website
Lockheed Martin
Social
Lockheed Martin

Product/Service - McCandless, MCB

Classification
Cargo Transportation & Landers
Category
Transport Service (LEO-Moon)
Commercial Lunar Lander
Human Landing System
Fields
Mars
Moon
Nuclear Propulsion
Nuclear Fission Power
Nuclear Power
Status
Concept
First launch
Not announced

Lunar Lander

McCandless Lunar Lander can transport up to 350 kg of cargo to the surface of the Moon and provide up to 400 W of power to operate there.

Keeping the status as Concept until there are plans to move into hardware manufacturing with a launch date.

Link

Product/Service

Classification
Space Utilities
Category
Resources - Energy
Nuclear Fission Power
Fields
Mars
Moon
Nuclear Propulsion
Nuclear Fission Power
Nuclear Power
Status
Concept, Development
First launch
Not announced

Solar Power on Moon

NASA has selected three companies to further advance work on deployable solar array systems that will help power the agency’s human and robotic exploration of the Moon under Artemis.

Space Nuclear

Under a program called DRACO, short for demonstration rocket for agile cislunar operations, DARPA wants to demonstrate nuclear thermal propulsion technology — using a nuclear reactor to heat up rocket fuel to generate thrust. DARPA awarded General Atomics a $22 million contract to develop the nuclear reactor. Lockheed Martin’s contract value is $2.9 million and the Blue Origin’s is $2.5 million.

NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) are working together to advance space nuclear technologies. The agencies have selected three design concept proposals for a fission surface power system design that could be ready to launch by the end of the decade for a demonstration on the Moon. This technology would benefit future exploration under the Artemis umbrella. The contracts, to be awarded through the DOE’s Idaho National Laboratory, are each valued at approximately $5 million. The contracts fund the development of initial design concepts for a 40-kilowatt class fission power system planned to last at least 10 years in the lunar environment.

JETSON

Hot off the heels of the DRACO announcement in July 2023, Lockheed Martin was awarded $33.7 million from the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) for the Joint Emergent Technology Supplying On-Orbit Nuclear (JETSON) High Power program to mature high-power nuclear electric power and propulsion technologies and spacecraft design. The JETSON effort is now in the preliminary design review stage, with the option to go to critical design review level.

Aerospace Partnership wins Air Force Research Laboratory Joint Energy Technology Supplying On-orbit Nuclear (JETSON) Nuclear Electric Propulsion Demonstration Project, 2023-10-16

JETSON will use a fission reactor that generates heat, which is then transferred to Stirling engines to produce between 6 kWe and 20 kWe of electricity – four times the power of conventional solar arrays without the need to be in continuous sunlight. The reactor draws heavily from the design and lessons of the 2018 Kilopower Reactor Using Stirling Technology (KRUSTY) demonstration led by NASA and the DoE’s National Nuclear Security Administration.

This technology has the potential to produce much higher electrical output than spacecraft powered by solar panels, which generally garner about 600 watts of power, or the equivalent of six lightbulbs. For deep space exploration missions not as close to the sun, or in shadowed regions, nuclear electric-powered subsystems are a great alternative to have in a company’s power-generation toolkit.

As on other space nuclear programs, safety is a top priority with JETSON. Uranium, prior to the start of the fission process, is benign. During launch, the reactor is in an inert, inactive configuration and is designed to not turn on and start the fission process until the spacecraft is in a safe non-decaying orbit far out from Earth.

Keeping the status as Concept until there are plans to move into hardware manufacturing with a launch date.

Created: 2023-03-04

Updated: 2024-03-02

Link

Product/Service - Lunar Mobility Vehicle (LMV)

Classification
Surface Spacecraft
Category
Commercial Rover
Fields
Moon
Status
Concept
First launch
Not announced
Partners
General Motors, Lunar Outpost

Lunar Rover

General Motors and Lockheed announced in 2021 they were teaming up to work on a new lunar rover that would carry astronauts and their gear on the moon. Now the companies say they could develop a whole lineup of vehicles for work on the moon and that these could be available to commercial space companies, not just NASA. The companies hope to have a vehicle ready and on the moon awaiting astronauts by 2025.

Lockheed Martin is developing an LTV dubbed the Lunar Mobility Vehicle (LMV) in partnership with General Motors and Lunar Outpost. The vehicle is being designed to operate with or without humans and to preposition itself autonomously near a landing site prior to the arrival of the crew. Lockheed says the LMV also would be able to be operated remotely from the Human Landing System or the orbiting lunar Gateway.

The Lockheed rover is being designed to survive and even operate during the two-week-long lunar night that sees temperatures as cold as -280F and in daytime temperatures of 260F. The power system is planned to leverage GM’s Ultium cell technology, which relies on a nickel-cobalt-manganese-aluminum chemistry and requires 70% less cobalt than the cells used in the car company’s Bolt EV. “We’re currently doing a lot of development on the motors and electrical systems,” says Kirk Shireman, vice president of lunar exploration campaigns at Lockheed Martin.

Keeping the status as Concept until there are plans to move into hardware manufacturing with a launch date.

Created: 2023-07-17

Updated: 2024-03-02

Link

Product/Service

Classification
In-Space Manufacturing
Category
In-Space Manufacturing
In-Space Assembly
In-Space Joining
Fields
Large Space Structures
Status
Concept, Development
First launch
Not announced

NASA has selected 11 U.S. companies to develop technologies that will support long-term exploration on the Moon and in space under its sixth Tipping Point opportunity in July 2023.

What is In-Space Joining?

Essentially, in-space joining, or ISJ, is a critical technology needed to enable in-space assembly, consisting of delivering elements to space and then robotically assembling and integrating them into much larger products and systems.

JOINS includes delivering an ISJ module payload to the ISS, integrating the payload within the Bishop Airlock, exposing the payload to the space environment while conducting joining demonstrations, and returning test articles to Earth for further study and analysis.

“As we look to build an infrastructure at the Moon, Mars and beyond, we see in-space joining demonstrations as critical to establishing necessary capabilities for future missions,” said Robert Biggs, JOINS Program Manager at Lockheed Martin. “Our ultimate goal with JOINS is to verify joining integrity for future space applications such as lunar surface infrastructure, orbital persistent platforms, and several space-system elements including antennas, solar arrays, sunshades, optical systems and radiators that will be essential to building out the lunar economy.”

Created: 2023-07-25

Updated: 2024-03-03

Sources


Most sources should be linked in the texts and headings as revealed by mouse-over, but here are they listed for visibility.

[1] https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/index.html

[2] https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/products/mccandless-lunar-lander.html

News, Research, Projects and Patents

Title Type Date Summary
Companies and government agencies announce plans for lunar rover projects News 2021-05-27
Beyond Apollo: Taking One Giant Leap Article 2021-01-01
Lockheed Martin releases open-source on-orbit docking standard News 2022-04-05
NASA Selects Developer for Rocket to Retrieve First Samples from Mars News 2022-02-07 [NASA has awarded a contract to Lockheed Martin Space of Littleton, Colorado**,** to build the Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV), a small, lightweight rocket to launch rock, sediment, and atmospheric samples from the surface of the Red Planet. The award brings NASA a step closer to the first robotic round-trip to bring samples safely to Earth through the Mars Sample Return program.](https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-selects-developer-for-rocket-to-retrieve-first-samples-from-mars)
Lockheed Martin’s Joe Landon on the emerging space economy Article 2022-02-14
Why Self-propagating Robots Are the Future of Space Article 2022-09-06

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