CLLARE
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Contents |
Overview
CLLARE (Collaborative Lunar Landing and Research Expedition) is CSTART'/a> project to put a single human on the Moon and return them to Earth. The project is intended to be very minimalist in comparison to Apollo, taking the approach of "doing the simplest thing that could possibly work", using inexpensive, off-the-shelf technology wherever possible, in accordance with our Design Philosophy.
The CLLARE flight plan is based on a lunar orbit rendezvous profile: one spacecraft is used to carry the astronaut from Earth into lunar orbit; the astronaut then transfers to a second vehicle which is used to travel down to and back up from the lunar surface, before the original spacecraft is used to return the astronaut to Earth. The core hardware items required for the flight are the CLLARE Command Module, the CLLARE Lunar Lander and the CLLARE Launch Vehicles.
The Command Module is a conical capsule with a cylindrical nose section (similar in appearance to the US Mercury and Gemini spacecraft) as is designed to fill a range of mission roles, ranging from suborbital flights to lunar missions. This versatility is achieved by the use of attachable modules to provide supply storage and propulsion. The CM is in some regards most like Mercury (small size, crew of one) and in other regards most like Gemini (it features a hatch which can be opened in space to facilitate spacewalks).
The lunar lander is an open, very light weight and very low cost system, similar to numerous landers planned but never built during the early stages of the Apollo project, such as the Apollo Lunar Escape System ("LESS"), the Langley Light, Lighter and Lightest landers, and the SpaceDev Rocket Chair.
Both the CM and the LL will be launched using the same family of launch vehicles. The most developed plan for the LVs so far is to use a modular approach, inspired by the OTRAG rockets, in which a large number of small and simple individual rockets are clustered together to form larger, more powerful stages. This allows economies of scale to reduce launch costs and removes the need for large workshops or equipment. There is currently a strong preference for using hybrid rocket engines rather than solid or liquid engines due to the increased ease and safety of acquiring, storing and handling propellants. The alternative option of using commercial launch vehicles is still occasionally still discussed.
A general overview of the mission can be read at the "CLLARE mission overview" page of this Wiki. A formal, detailed overview of the entire CLLARE project, including basic feasibility analyses, can be found in the CLLARE Project Overview document.
Technical details
Overview pages
Core hardware
Workgroups
You can learn more about all the technical details of the CLLARE project by looking at the Wiki pages for each of the project's workgroups:
- Mission Planning Workgroup (MPW)
- Propulsion Workgroup (PW)
- Spacecraft Engineering Workgroup (SEW)
- Life Support Workgroup (LSW)
- Computer Systems Workgroup (CSW)
- Navigation and Guidance Workgroup (NGW)
- Communications Workgroup (CW)
