This article was posted today on the "Return to the Moon" listserver......
From Space ADG:
Boeing set to build lander prototype The $34 million project is part of a plan to explore the moon and Mars. By GARY ROBBINS The Orange County Register
HUNTINGTON BEACH - The Boeing Co. will design and build a small- scale prototype of a lunar and planetary lander that can skillfully detect and avoid natural and man-made hazards.
NASA chose Boeing as prime contractor for the $34 million project, one of the first contracts awarded under the Bush administration's plan to put humans and robots on the moon and, at some point, Mars.
The multiyear contract requires Boeing and its subcontractors to develop a Light Detection and Ranging, or LIDAR, system that can recognize rough terrain that poses hazards to a lander on descent. The LIDAR will allow the lander's next-generation guidance system to steer around such things as boulders, hills and the structures that will someday exist at lunar colonies.
The LIDAR and guidance system will be incorporated into a prototype lander that will undergo aerial-drop tests during the latter part of the contract, Boeing officials say. The size of the prototype has yet to be determined, but it could be about the size of the rovers now at work on Mars.
"We're really excited that we will be working on advanced technologies that are needed for the future exploration of the moon and planets," said James Ball, Boeing's deputy principal investigator on the project.
The subcontractors include Universal Space Lines, or USL, of Newport Beach, which will develop software that will help safely guide the lander to the surface after the LIDAR has spotted hazards.
Only a few Boeing engineers will be involved in the initial planning. But a research, development and management team will likely develop over the next couple of years, Boeing says.
The contract builds upon a long history of manned and unmanned space work at the Huntington Beach plant, which opened 41 years ago this week as Douglas Aircraft's Space Systems Center. The plant built the third-stage of the Saturn V rocket that propelled Apollo astronauts to the moon, as well as developing Skylab, the United States' first manned Earth-orbiting space station.
The center also designed and built portions of the International Space Station. And 450 workers are currently working on upgrades to help the space-shuttle fleet return to flight.
Boeing-Huntington Beach, as the plant is now known, also is doing preliminary research on the Crew Exploration Vehicle, a proposed replacement for the space shuttle.
Boeing's local collaborator, Universal Space Lines, is a small aerospace company that specializes in reusable space-launch vehicle technology.
USL was co-founded in 1996 by Charles "Pete" Conrad, Jr., the former Apollo 12 astronaut who went on to become an executive at the Huntington Beach plant.
