Main Engine Cut Off - T+291: Axiom Updates Station Plans, Firefly Wins Another CLPS Mission

Episode Date: December 21, 2024

Axiom Space announced changes to their station build out plan, bringing free-flying capability forward in their timeline and switching to a berthing port at the ISS to avoid the US Deorbit Vehicle. Firefly won another CLPS task order, this time for a lander with a rover, and for quite a bit more money than the last few.This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought to you by 32 executive producers—Josh from Impulse, Fred, Kris, Will and Lars from Agile, Pat, Ryan, Donald, Joel, Better Every Day Studios, Joakim (Jo-Kim), Jan, David, Pat from KC, Bob, Harrison, Joonas, Steve, Warren, The Astrogators at SEE, Tim Dodd (the Everyday Astronaut!), Russell, Lee, Matt, Stealth Julian, Theo and Violet, Frank, and four anonymous—and hundreds of supporters.TopicsAxiom Space revises space station assembly plans - SpaceNewsAxiom Space Accelerates Axiom Station AssemblyAxiom Station — Axiom SpaceMore NASA Science, Tech will Fly to Moon Aboard Future Firefly Flight - NASAThe ShowLike the show? Support the show!Email your thoughts, comments, and questions to [e-mail] @WeHaveMECOFollow @[e-mail] on MastodonListen to MECO HeadlinesListen to Off-NominalJoin the Off-Nominal DiscordSubscribe on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, TuneIn or elsewhereSubscribe to the Main Engine Cut Off NewsletterArtwork photo by SpaceXWork with me and my design and development agency: Pine Works

Hello and welcome to Main Engine Cutoff, I am Anthony Colangelo. Axiom Space this week updated their plans for their upcoming space station in a really interesting way that I think addresses not only where we're at in the timeline of the commercial space station market, and specifically Axioms, but also some of the learnings that they've had maybe in the last couple years as they've done some private astronaut missions, as they've made their way, start bending some metal towards their full-on space station modules. We'll start with what they were planning. They were planning to attach a habitat to the ISS first, right? They're the ones that got a approval essentially to use one of the docking ports

on the ISS to extend the station and attach their module to the space station where they would get, you know, power and thermal control, life support, help for their habitat. They would get a lot of the access there to the space station, but extend the space station to be able to host more private astronaut missions, to be able to do a little bit more in terms of capabilities and catering to their customers. That was the plan. Then they would build onto that over time. They would then add a second habitat. They would add an airlock module. They would eventually get up to adding a what was called a power tower at the time. At that point, they'd be able to undock and be a free-flying space station. So they were going to build out this entire infrastructure while attached to the ISS,

and then eventually go and detach from the ISS and go flying free on their own. detached from the ISS and go flying free on their own. Fast forward a couple years, and the U.S. orbital segment of the ISS, the NASA-led half of the ISS, has now funded a U.S. deorbit vehicle to take care of deorbiting the space station after 2030, when its time has come. And it turns out they need to use that same docking port, or they would need to, in the case of Axiom actually going ahead and flying this habitat, dock the U.S. deorbit vehicle to the Axiom module to do the deorbit. So that presents a challenge if you're somebody who wants to take your module and stay in space, even though the whole ISS is being deorbited, and you're stuck between the ISS and the deorbit vehicle. Obvious challenge there. So they say that's one of the reasons that led them to this architectural change. I think we'll

uncover some other reasons. What they're going to do instead is take the hardware that they were building that Habitat 1 module with and turn it into what they're calling the Payload Power Thermal Module, PPTM. Horrible naming. I think we need to really work with them on the naming front, but nonetheless, the payload power thermal module, it is least descriptive. So we know what that thing has capabilities for. They are essentially upgrading that habitat with what they need to be a free flying space station after a single launch, right from the get-go, they'd be able to have that operate independently if it were needing to. They're also going to move away from using the docking port on the ISS, the forward docking port, and they're going to move

to berthing, which is where Cygnus attached right now, using the berthing port that Cygnus uses right now, to be basically out of line from the USD orbit vehicle to the rest of the ISS. This has some additional challenges, right? They're not going to dock with the space station, so they will go up and they will get grappled by the arm and attached to the space station. But it does, there are some benefits there. I think that the port sizes that you've got a little bit bigger when you're berthing, so the connection to the space station is a little bit bigger. You can fit certain kinds of hardware through. That's become less of a challenge in recent years as NASA's changed how they're handling some space station parts and space suit parts, I should say, and some other things that had trouble fitting through a docking

port before. That is no longer as much of an issue as we've seen some of these spacesuits come back on dragons that have docked to the station. But there is some benefit there. You get a little bit extra diameter. But really, the key thing is that they can use one of the other ports that the USD over vehicle does not and cannot use. The long-term goal with this module is that it would last on the ISS for a couple of years. And then towards the end of the ISS, they could actually be the home for some of the hardware coming off of ISS. So this module itself, the PPTM has habitat space, but it also has eight payload racks, I believe it was, eight science racks for research payloads. It has all the power and thermal control that it needs to fly on its own

and to host crew on its own. So certainly, you know, when they fly up to the ISS, they can go and sleep in that module and work in that module. But then eventually they would break free, they would go off on their own, and then Habitat 1 would come along and dock to this PPTM module. Habitat 1, that future module that they would fly, would have a robotic arm. I think at that point they're going to need it to birth the PPTM to Habitat 1. Again, this is not docking, this is birthing. So it is a grapple-based attachment mechanism. So you're going to need a robotic arm on board of the second module to birth the first one back to it. So it's a little bit more complicated in that

particular way, but both modules, they say, would be able to fly independently, independent control, power thermal, everything that they need to be able to fly free on their own. Now, that is a lot better than what they did before, which was they needed four different modules before they're going to be able to fly on their own under the old Axiom station. That's a ton of money. It's a ton of time. And I think at a certain point, this schedule started to fall apart on them. As the first module drifted later and later, you know, there was talks before of like 2024. Now they're talking that first Habitat module was going to be 2026. So they are still, I think they're still talking about this new module being a 2026 thing, but, you know, more likely 27, 28. You're getting pretty close to the end of the ISS at that point.

And obviously you're not going to have a lot of time to finish off multiple modules and get them up to the ISS before you need to be a free flyer. So the monetary issues that they're having at Axiom, which we've heard reported before that they are having problems making money, raising money, and keeping a cash flow, or even just funding up for all of their plans. Couple that with the fact that your timeline is falling off a cliff in terms of being able to get enough hardware up to the ISS before the ISS deorbits. That's a real quagmire that you're in. So they needed to, by nature of the clock that we're looking at, they needed to add free-flying capability to the first module that they're going to launch. At that point, there's some

interesting questions as to why go to the ISS, I think is a very ripe question here. Because if you think about the timeline at play, we already are seeing a fairly, I wouldn't say slow, but fairly restricted schedule in terms of private astronaut missions up to the ISS. Axiom has had the run on those for a couple of years now. But you know, we've heard VAST is interested in selling those. There could be others that bid for those private astronaut mission slots from NASA in the future. So it's not a given that Axiom would get every single one of them. And then when you look at the kind of schedule that these missions have been flying at, it's, again, not super rapid. Now, you could say that's because there's not enough space for them. And certainly,

if you added an Axiom module, there is more space for these missions. Maybe you could fly more frequently. And that's one thing for sure. But the other aspect is that in 2027, in 2028, in 2029, for sure, we're getting towards the end of the ISS program. How much appetite is there for NASA to have private astronaut missions coming up and pinging around the station when they are working on getting this thing ready for deorbit, squeezing the last bit of science and research out of this platform that you can. Is there a huge appetite for having private astronaut missions there in that environment? I don't really think so. Also couple that with the fact that to this point, we haven't heard a lot of good news about Axiom making money on private astronaut missions. I do not think they have been lucrative. They now are flying an extra

crew member. So they only have three sellable seats because they're flying an Axiom crew member on board each of these flights to help things go smoother on station. So there's only three seats. They are pushing into this national astronaut market, less so space tourism, more so, you know, a country wants to have an astronaut that doesn't have an astronaut core already, it hasn't been lucrative. So if there are other plans of building out a whole bunch of stuff on the ISS and selling missions there, you know, if that was the idea and they're not making money on those missions even right now when they're not operating their own hardware on the ISS, how are they going to make money when

they are operating their own hardware on the ISS? It doesn't really make sense. So then the benefit here, if they can make it to the ISS before the ISS is decommissioned entirely, is that they are the recipients of hardware that NASA is going to salvage off of the ISS. Whether it be those research payloads that go into their science racks, or is there other salvageable hardware on the ISS that they could make use of, that becomes a real benefit to them for things that might not be useful in that first module, but that they could take and reuse on later modules. They're going to have that habitat, a second habitat, eventually an airlock. They've got ideas for research modules down the line as well. So they've got a bunch of stuff coming down the line that some of this hardware could

be useful for, whether it's, like I said, payloads or other systems. Other than that, I don't really know what they're going to do at the ISS when they're attached that warrants them not just being a free-flying station from day one. It's not like they're hitching rides on, you know, pre-bought crew flights that are going up the ISS. Those are all spoken for. It's not like they're hitching a ride up and it's convenient to have your station located there because you're riding along with the expeditions that are flying up to the ISS. You're buying your own flights up to your own hardware anyway. You just happen to be going to a very busy ISS. So what I think this does is it means that they don't need to have built as many modules as was on their roadmap before. They don't have to finance that many modules anymore. They can

do it with one or two modules at most and be able to compete for the space station contracts that are coming directly with the free-flying space station market that's out there from Starlab and Orbital Reef and all the others that are looking. VAST themselves is looking at having their free-flying station. There are a bunch of players in that space, and now Axiom's switching their roadmap up to be able to more directly compete in that market right away because their timeline, their funding, and I think their interest level for this attached to ISS Space Station market has collapsed. So all in all, I think I'm more hopeful for Axiom's plans in this case. It feels like a more

realistic fit with the market and what we know is coming in the next couple of years. It doesn't make me confident in their overall strategy. If this big of a rethink is coming at the end of 2024, when there's this little time left, it's a pretty big change for that habitat to turn into a full-on power and payload and thermal module from December 2024 to launch in 2026. But I think it does bring their plans more into the realm of reality. It does bring them more into the realm of feasibility. So for that, I think that there's something good going here. And I'm hopeful for it. But you know, can they make the gauntlet between getting this hardware up to space before the ISS is deorbited? I mean, the good thing is if they miss entirely, and this is not ready until 2030, they can free fly. And that might be their ultimate protection here is that they are now unhitched from the ISS

schedule entirely if they really needed to do that. Because I don't know that NASA is going to want to host a new module in 2028 if they're in the run up to deorbiting in 2030, which means they're getting ready for it and starting to let it drift down in 2029. It's not like Axiom is going to undock the day before the ISS hits the atmosphere. They're going to need a little bit of heads up from that too. So they've really put a tight time limit on how long they can be at the ISS and still be operating. But all in all, I do think this is a good direction for them to head. I do think it makes it more realistic that they could make it to their full-blown Axiom station, their free-flying station. And so for that, I think that's a good thing. All right, I've got one other story I want to talk about a little bit today, which is

Firefly winning yet another task order in the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. But first, I want to say thank you to everyone who supports Main Engine Cutoff. MainEngineCutoff.com slash support will get you to join the crew. There's almost 900 of you listening and supporting every single month. And I'm so thankful for all of your support. Supporters get access to Miko Headlines, which is a whole other podcast that I do every single week-ish, running through all the stories in space, filtering out the ones you don't need to care about, focusing on the ones that you do. Usually get my analysis a couple of days ahead of time. I talked about the Axiom show a couple of days ago

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of this episode of the show. Thanks to Josh from Impulse, Fred, Chris, Will and Lars from Agile, Pat, Ryan, Donald, Joel, Better Everyday Studios, Joe Kim, Jan, David, Pat from KC, thanks josh from impulse fred chris will and lars from agile pat ryan donald joel better everyday studios joe kim jan david pat from kc bob harrison eunice steve warren the astrogators at sce tim dodd david ashtonot russell lee matt stealth julian theo and violet frank and four anonymous executive registers everyone wondering when stealth julian is not going to be in stealth anymore i gotta ask him if he still is. We'll find out.

Thank you all so much for the support, as always. And yeah, it's because of you that this show happens. So I appreciate it. Firefly wins their fourth task order as part of NASA's moon program overall. This one, for their third landing mission, they do have another one that's not a lander, but it's related to services and that kind of stuff. But it's kind of a typical announcement here for the Eclipse mission, right?

There's six payloads on board. They're going to the Grutusen Domes. I still can't pronounce that correctly. The Headlines listeners will laugh at that one. This is an area that is magma that is rich in silica is what they suspect to find there. That's how they think it formed. They're going there to learn about it because it's similar in composition to granite, apparently, what we've got here on Earth.

But we don't necessarily have plate tectonics or oceans of water on the moon, which is how that forms here on Earth. So we're going there to figure out what's going on with that. One of the payloads I will mention is Sampler, the sample acquisition morphology filtering and probing of lunar regolith. That is a flight spare from the Mars Exploration Rover Project. Obviously, it was not used to go to Mars. Still around, still kicking. They're going to fly this to the moon. I always thought that was a cool one. I'm excited to see it get assigned to a mission. Very excited to watch that go, do some sampling. The six instruments collectively are about 97 kilograms in mass,

so just under 100 kilograms of payload to the moon in this particular thing. And one aspect of this is that some of these instruments will be mounted on a rover. Firefly apparently acquiring that rover from an unnamed industry partner. I have not seen what rover that will be yet. Maybe they haven't decided. Who knows? But some of these payloads are due to be mounted on a rover that will be yet. Maybe they haven't decided. Who knows? But some of these payloads are due to be mounted on a rover that will be deployed from the lander as well. Now,

the reason that I'm bringing this up on the main show is to comment on the fact that this was a $179 million task order. Not that I think that's too expensive, but I'm glad to see that I think the race to the bottom is over enough in in the eclipse department um you know the first few task orders were shockingly low um in terms of overall price uh so just to run down some of these early ones the peregrine mission that we saw fly at the beginning of this year 79.5 million dollars uh nova i nova c i am one mission the intuitive machines mission that flew at the beginning this year 77 $77 million. Orbit Beyond that eventually went out of business, $97 million.

We had a Masten one in there at $76 million. And then we started getting up a little bit higher with Griffin, mission one at $199 million at the time, obviously has grown quite a bit since then. The one that's a real standout is the im2 mission that's upcoming with the contract was 47 million dollars i kind of like didn't even remember that that is the case and i had to look this up multiple times it sounds like way too little so maybe that was the last of the uh the race to the bottom ones uh other than that the first blue ghost mission for firefly 93 million dollars im3 for Intuitive Machines, $77 million. Draper, $73 million. Started to climb up a little bit. And then since then, we've been in triple digits

for the remainder. So Blue Ghost Mission 2, $112 million. IM4 for Intuitive Machines, $117 million. And now we've got $180 million. Obviously, some complexity going on here with the rover. But this is, again, 100 kilograms of payload. This is not us jumping up into the multiple thousands of kilograms of payload. And that's why the price has gone up. I think there's a little bit of correction happening here. Rover driving some of that complexity in both the Rover that they need to purchase and integrate, but also the deployment mechanism.

So there is complexity here that drives it up quite a bit. So there is complexity here that drives it up quite a bit. I mean, hell, this small rover is almost the same as the original Griffin contract award. So I do think that's healthy for the program overall, because when we started in the early days, the prices were just unbelievably low. I mean, in many cases, it was like, how are you going to find a launch to do that at that price, let alone all of the development of a lunar lander and operation of a lunar lander. That has corrected over time. And I think it's putting the program in a more healthy position. We got to see when they actually get around to flying this, right? I mean, it's been, it's, it was about five years from award to flight for both Peregrine and Nova C IM1.

Um, if in that time, obviously costs got a little screwy, inflation happened. I'm sure that was whittled away even more than it already looked. Um, and launch costs have went down a little bit, but not that much. So, you know, when Blue Ghost Mission 3 flies, it's expected in 2028, presume 29 or 30, just on standard adjustment. You know, in another five or six years, does that money still go as far? Does it feel as tight then as these other missions do right now? That's an open question. But generally, what I wanted to see out of the Eclipse program was that the race to the bottom ended, the kind of relentless pursuit of winning a task order. Maybe that has subsided as

all of the real serious companies have gotten Eclipse task order at this point. So it doesn't feel like someone really has to come in aggressively priced or maybe that stuff just isn't credible anymore. So it's not something that you can go out and bid and say, I've got a $30 million way to pull off that mission. But maybe everyone's just being a little bit more responsive. I'd love to see some of the source selection documents on this. I haven't seen them published yet. Maybe I miss them, but I haven't seen them out there. But overall, I think as Clips matures, we need to see these prices get more realistic and something that we actually believe can be pulled off for that price rather than how much money is this company going to lose on this task order? That was one of the

early questions that we had for the first couple of missions. I haven't asked that in the last few, and I'm happy about that. So we'll see how it goes, I guess. But I did want to bring that up and call attention to it because it seems notable to me. And that's what my job is here. So that's what I've got for you today. Thank you all so much for listening, for the support as always. And we're coming up into the holidays here, so schedules might get a little bit weird overall. But we will be back as things happen.

So I appreciate all of your support, all of the listening. Happy holidays. Happy New Year. Merry Christmas. The whole thing. And I will talk to you soon.