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SpaceX accepts Dogecoin cost for DOGE-1 mission to the moon

SpaceX accepts Dogecoin payment for DOGE-1 mission to the moon

SpaceX founder Elon Musk shows the audience after he was recognized by US President Donald Trump in NASA’s vehicle assembly building after successfully launching a Falcon 9 rocket with the Crew Dragon spacecraft from Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center

Paul Hennessy | SOPA pictures | Getty Images

Elon Musk’s SpaceX will launch the “DOGE-1 Mission to the Moon” in the first quarter of 2022, with the company accepting the meme-inspired cryptocurrency as full payment for the lunar payload.

Geometric Energy Corporation announced the Dogecoin-funded mission on Sunday, which SpaceX’s communications team confirmed in an email to reporters. The financial worth of the mission has not been disclosed.

DOGE-1 will fly a 40-kilogram cube satellite as a payload on a Falcon 9 rocket. Geometric Energy Corporation states that the payload will “receive lunar sensors from sensors and cameras on board with integrated communication and computing systems.”

Tom Ochinero, Vice President Commercial Sales at SpaceX, said in a statement that DOGE-1 “will demonstrate the application of cryptocurrency beyond orbit and lay the foundation for interplanetary trade.”

“We’re excited to bring DOGE-1 to the moon!” Said Ochinero.

A Falcon 9 rocket will launch the Transporter 1 mission in January 2021.

SpaceX

Musk previously announced the company’s plans, albeit in an April Fool’s tweet.

“SpaceX is going to put a literal Dogecoin on the literal moon,” wrote Musk.

The DOGE-1 mission comes after Musk, the self-proclaimed “Dogefather”, made his debut as the host of “Saturday Night Live”. The price of Dogecoin fell during its appearance and fell below 50 cents despite its references to the cryptocurrency.

For SpaceX, the announcement also comes on the day the company set a new record for its Falcon 9 rocket series. After launching another series of Starlink satellites into orbit, SpaceX landed the Falcon 9 rocket booster for the tenth time – a benchmark Musk previously described as key to the company’s progress in reusing its rockets.

“It’s designed for 10 or more flights with no renovation between each flight,” Musk told reporters in May 2018.

“We believe that [Falcon 9] Boosters can be deployed on the order of at least 100 flights before they retire. Maybe more. “

A Falcon 9 rocket amplifier lands after the start of the Sentinel 6 mission.

SpaceX

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Blue Origin Challenges NASA Over SpaceX Moon Lander Deal

Blue Origin Challenges NASA Over SpaceX Moon Lander Deal

Mr Smith said Blue Origin would make bids for a future competition. But he added, “The idea that we will be able to restore competition with something that is currently completely undefined and completely unfunded makes little sense to us.”

When Bill Nelson, a former Florida Senator whom President Biden has appointed as NASA’s next administrator, testified at a confirmation hearing last week, Senator Maria Cantwell, Democrat of Washington and chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, was petitioned him to undertake to present a plan to Congress on how NASA would ensure commercial competition under the lunar lander program.

“I do,” said Mr. Nelson. “The competition is always good.”

Mr Smith said NASA has hired more than one company in the past with programs similar to space station missions, despite a lack of security for future budgets.

The Blue Origin-led offering was more than double that of SpaceX at $ 6.0 billion. But Mr Smith said NASA had returned to SpaceX and negotiated the price of their proposal, despite not having had similar conversations with the other two teams.

“We haven’t had a chance to revise and that’s basically unfair,” said Mr Smith.

Less than $ 9 billion would have paid for two landers, and that’s comparable to the $ 8.3 billion cost of the commercial occupation program that now enables transportation to the space station, the protest argued.

“NASA receives great value from these proposals,” said Smith.

The evaluations of the offers by NASA resulted in evaluations of the technical aspects of the proposals by Blue Origin and SpaceX as “acceptable”. The rating of Dynetics was lower and was “marginal”. SpaceX’s management was rated “excellent” while Blue Origin and its partners, as well as Dynetics, were rated “very good”.

Mr Smith said NASA misjudged aspects of its proposal such as the communications system and redundancy in guidance and navigation as vulnerabilities. He also said it downplayed the risks in SpaceX’s design, such as the need to refuel Starship in orbit, which has never been attempted before.

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SpaceX’s Starship sole winner in NASA’s HLS Moon lander program

SpaceX's Starship sole winner in NASA's HLS Moon lander program

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk ceremoniously raises his arms beneath a prototype Starship rocket under construction in Boca Chica, Texas.

Steve Jurvetson on flickr

Elon Musk’s SpaceX knocked out teams led by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and Leidos subsidiary Dynetics and won a nearly $ 3 billion contract to build NASA’s next manned lunar lander.

“It is another step in an exciting set of steps that leads us to a sustainable human landing system on the moon,” said Kathy Lueders, director of NASA’s manned space program, in the agency’s announcement.

SpaceX’s order is valued at $ 2.89 billion. The Washington Post first reported on SpaceX’s victory on Friday.

NASA awarded the three teams $ 967 million last year and a 10-month contract to begin work on the lunar landing concepts as part of its Human Landing Systems (HLS) program. SpaceX received the smallest amount of the three at $ 135 million. Meanwhile, Dynetics received $ 253 million and Blue Origin received $ 579 million.

NASA was expected to select two of the three teams, which makes SpaceX’s sole selection surprising given the agency’s previous goals for the program, which is supposed to remain a competition.

Starship’s SN11 prototype rocket is on the launchpad at the company’s Boca Chica, Texas facility.

SpaceX

For the HLS program, Musk’s company offered a variation of its Starship rocket, prototypes of which SpaceX has tested at its development facility in Boca Chica, Texas. The company has had several successful Starship test flights to date, although attempts to land after the last four soaring have resulted in a multitude of fiery explosions.

NASA said their astronauts will use Starship to transfer from the agency’s Orion spacecraft when the capsule reaches lunar orbit.

HLS is part of NASA’s Artemis mission to land astronauts on the moon by 2024.

The mission was announced by the administration of President Donald Trump. President Joe Biden’s press secretary has indicated that the current administration expects to proceed with Artemis.

Bezos’ space company announced plans to build a manned lunar lander in 2019 and announced that it would partner with industry giants Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Draper. Dynetics from Leidos teamed up with the Sierra Nevada Corporation for his concept and was considered a dark horse in the race.