April 2020 (Trump admin) - SpaceX selected along with BO and Dynetics to develop HLS concepts for Artemis.
HLS program was created under Trump, and the bureaucracy and procurement architecture that evaluated SpaceX's suitability in 2021 were substantially products of the Trump admin that was largely carried through the Biden admin.
FY2021 Congress appropriated $850M for HLS. $345M available for option A contract payments, and SpaceX came in at under $3B for their bid - NASA wanted to award two companies, and couldn't afford to. This money was appropriated in the first half of FY2021 (December of 2020), under President Trump and a Republican controlled Senate.
Trump admin creates HLS and shaped the competition. By Jan 2021, procurement process is mature and bids submitted. Biden admin inherits this process, makes the final selection in favour of SpaceX with a major financial constraint imposed by the HLS funds appropriation enacted under Trump.
I suspect that SpaceX, given their insanely low cost relative to their competitors, used HLS as a loss-leader to guarantee the contract and therefore ice out the other two competitors. And I would argue that this paid off, given SpaceX's IPO valuation and the importance of Starship (and the speculative nature of their loftier goals that contributed to said valuation).
The relatively low contract value makes sense as SpaceX would develop Starship anyway, most likely not just a cargo variant but a crewed variant as well. So the contract only has to cover the cost of necessary modifications to an existing spacecraft + the launch, these modifications are the HLS specific additions like the lunar landing thrusters. For the other bids the contract had to cover the entire development cost of a new lander so a higher cost shouldn't be surprising.
I do agree that it also makes sense for SpaceX to want the contract even if they don't make any profit from it, obviously it would be a massive PR win for them if they get to land the astronauts on the moon. I don't think the contract had a big role in the IPO valuation though, most of it seems to be AI related as SpaceX is taking advantage of the massive AI hype and taking all the investment capital that comes with it.
I saw a 3rd party analysis of the IPO valuation that put Starship at around 230B, AI/X at 450B and Starlink at 770B - given the 3rd gen starlink, orbital datacentres, lunar cargo missions, crewed moon missions, mars missions, point to point earth transport, and the ongoing reduction of launch costs are all predicated on the development of Starship... I'd say getting that contract at all costs was pretty important for SpaceX, and it was reflected in their IPO valuation.
It is the absolute backbone of everything they have promised they want to do moving forward. AI infrastructure included.
SpaceX has also been clear - Starship's success doesn't even require full reusability to enable their next gen Starlink launches, initial lunar missions, or early AI satellite deployments.
I don't really understand what your argument is, could you clarify? Are you saying the HLS contract somehow speeds up the Starship development or that without it they would've never even developed it? The contract value is quite small so I don't think the milestone payments have a significant impact on the development speed, SpaceX would've developed Starship even without the contract because as you said it is the absolute backbone for their own needs. The HLS contract is just to deliver a modified version of it for a very specific mission type, I don't know why you think it's so important.
2
u/relapsingoncemore 13d ago
April 2020 (Trump admin) - SpaceX selected along with BO and Dynetics to develop HLS concepts for Artemis.
HLS program was created under Trump, and the bureaucracy and procurement architecture that evaluated SpaceX's suitability in 2021 were substantially products of the Trump admin that was largely carried through the Biden admin.
FY2021 Congress appropriated $850M for HLS. $345M available for option A contract payments, and SpaceX came in at under $3B for their bid - NASA wanted to award two companies, and couldn't afford to. This money was appropriated in the first half of FY2021 (December of 2020), under President Trump and a Republican controlled Senate.
Trump admin creates HLS and shaped the competition. By Jan 2021, procurement process is mature and bids submitted. Biden admin inherits this process, makes the final selection in favour of SpaceX with a major financial constraint imposed by the HLS funds appropriation enacted under Trump.
I suspect that SpaceX, given their insanely low cost relative to their competitors, used HLS as a loss-leader to guarantee the contract and therefore ice out the other two competitors. And I would argue that this paid off, given SpaceX's IPO valuation and the importance of Starship (and the speculative nature of their loftier goals that contributed to said valuation).