SpaceX Will Go To Mars Starting in 2018
SpaceX Will Start Going to Mars in 2018
“SpaceX announced today that it is going to start sending specially modified Dragon spacecraft aka “Red Dragon” to Mars as early as 2018. The purpose of these missions is to demonstrate the technologies needed to land large payloads propulsively on Mars. These Mars missions will also be pathfinders for the much larger SpaceX Mars colonization architecture that will be announced in September 2016. With this announcement SpaceX has upped the ante for the human exploration of Mars by beginning technology pathfinder missions a decade or more before NASA plans to do so.”
Dava Newman: Exploring Together, NASA
“When he laid out his plans for NASA and the Journey to Mars in 2010, President Obama spoke of how partnership with industry could have the potential to “accelerate the pace of innovations as companies – from young startups to established leaders – compete to design and build and launch new means of carrying people and materials out of our atmosphere.” This is exactly what’s happening and it’s one of the reasons that we’re closer to sending humans to Mars than ever before.”
Modified NASA/SpaceX Space Act Agreement
“The purpose of this Amendment No. 1 to Space Act Agreement No. SAA-QA-14-18883 between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (“NASA”) and Space Explorations Technologies Corp. (“Partner” or “SpaceX”), effective December 18,2014 (the “Agreement”), is to (1) further define areas of insight and assistance to SpaceX under the Agreement, (2) further define areas in which NASA will have access to and use of SpaceX data and technology to advance NASA’s understanding of the development of SpaceX’s propulsive descent capabilities and enable NASA’s own Mission to Mars, and (3) extend the period of performance under the Agreement.”
Keith’s note: Oddly, just yesterday, NASA Administrator Bolden referred to Falcon 9 as “old technology” when asked why NASA was building SLS. Well, SLS, using decades-old technology, was created to send humans on NASA’s #JourneyToMars. Yet those NASA missions won’t start sending hardware to Mars until the late 2020s / early 2030s. Meanwhile SpaceX, with its “old technology” will beat NASA by a decade or more when it starts landing Red Dragons on Mars.
– Charlie Bolden Is Very Confused These Days, earlier post
The comparison is apples to oranges, of course. Falcon Heavy can land perhaps a 5-tonne one-way capsule on Mars whilst SLS is designed to land 20+ tonne crew return vehicles.
However, in politics, perception is everything. If, in 2019, SpaceX lands even a robotic spacecraft on Mars before SLS has even flown twice, it is going to be terrifically hard for NASA to maintain the argument for SLS when the politicians can (and will) point at Falcon Heavy/Red Dragon and say: “Thanks but we’ve already got one”.
That said, the ‘old technology’ crack makes me laugh. SLS is basically refurbished 1970s tech designed as an expendable launcher. It is quite possible that, by 2018, SpaceX will be reusing as much as half of its cores for multiple flights. Falcon-9 v.1.2/Dragon-2 can be arguably described as a ‘partially reusable crewed space system’ and will make Orion look like a 1960s-era museum piece to the wider public.
My impression is that this is backwards. I can’t imagine many NASA engineers are thrilled about SLS. Most of the pressure to build it has come from Congress. If SpaceX gets to Mars first I doubt the politicians will line up behind them. Tens of thousands of their constituents’ very specialized jobs are on the line. More likely their response will be to circle the wagons.
Yea but there are people at NASA who see this as a win for the agency given that it builds upon decades of NASA research and shows that private sector planetary exploration is no longer a fantasy.
Red Dragon mission design papers have both spaceX and NASA Ames civil service authorships
The universe is a queer place.
Clarke helped to publicize J.B.S. Haldane’s remark:
“The universe is not merely queerer than we imagine; It is queerer than we CAN imagine.”
There are many that are privately thrilled. So many people who want to “do stuff” see this as a way to “do stuff”.
DC is tricky – while yes you will see Shelby and Nelson circle the wagons you will see many good senators and congressmen asking what the hell – you have told us that “Only NASA” can do this.
To be fair NASA is heavily involved with this but not in the vein that Shelby, Nelson, and the SLS mafia would like.
I mean think about this – you are a planetary scientist and now there is more than one way to get to Mars. SMD is quietly thrilled.
Just watch.
I think the Europeans, Russians and Indians already know there is more than one way to get to Mars. And the UAE is working on it. But I am excited about SpaceX’s cost, mass delivered and schedule.
They may know that there is another way but they do not have the resources.
Actually, the Europeans have one spacecraft orbiting Mars (Mars Express) and another one on the way (ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter.) India has one spacecraft orbiting Mars and has active plans for a second. Russia’s bad luck with Mars is well-known, but they have had partial successes and are contributing to ExoMars. The UAE Mars mission (al Amal) is in development and should launch in 2020.
So I guess it’s MSFC and JSC that should be worried about their future for once.
They are worried… but for very different reasons.
Where did the 5 tonne and 20+ tonne numbers come from? The initial SLS design would only put 75 and the upgraded version 125 tonnes in low Earth orbit, compared to 50 for a Falcon Heavy. Admittedly, SLS will have a better upper stage for planetary missions. But that isn’t turning 50 to 150% more mass to LEO into over 300% more to the Martian surface.That 20+ tonne number sounds more like what SLS would have to support, in order to live up to its advocates claims, not what the actual design is capable of.
It’s about the measure of tonnage to Mars vs. LEO. The initial SLS at 70t is a measure to LEO, herein taken up by the initial upper stage and Orion, both counted towards that 70t of payload. (And able for Orion to go further than LEO).
Later with a larger upper stage (the “EUS”), at some TBD date, some TBD dollars later, you get to the SLS 100-ish ton range (also a LEO measure).
Redesign the whole SLS thing again after some advanced boosters (thinking dates and more dollars yet atop the current yearly SLS costs?) and you get to the 130-ish ton range (also LEO, per launch), whereby the larger upper stage can then send along a payload to Mars in the 20t or so (landed) range. Other variants go along as well, such as getting these 20t landers onto some other stages (electric, etc.) at some staging point in space nearer the Moon.
I think you are comparing very different things.
On the one hand, we’ve got five or six tonnes to Mars, using a launch vehicle which is basically flight-tested hardware in a new configuration, with its first flight scheduled for this fall. (Ok, the difference between the Falcon 9 and Heavy is a bit more than a new configuration, but it is putting the same parts together in a different way.)
On the other hand, we’ve got a _desire_ to land 20 tonnes. That could be done using SLS (which won’t fly until 2018) in Block 2 version (which doesn’t exist outside of paper studies and isn’t on schedules going out to 2026.) Even with a Block 2 SLS, it would only be part of a larger system, potentially involving on-orbit assembly, electric propulsion, or who knows what.
If you want to compare a Falcon Heavy to SLS, either use the capabilities of the near-term configuration (so quote what a SLS Block 1 can get to Mars with a extant upper stage or one in active development) or compare what a Falcon Heavy could do with a decade of further development, a new upper stage, electric propulsion, etc. to SLS with similar enhancements.
That’s a little bit of oldthink, if you’ll forgive me (and you might want to double-check those figures?)
The focus here isn’t on FH– SpaceX will evolve that critter into something much bigger at the appropriate time. Have a look at YouTube for some reasonable speculation.
No, the thing here is Red Dragon landing with propulsion on Mars.
We know how to build big rockets, but this kind of landing is a very big deal.
The obsession with big honkin’ rockets is NASA’s (and Congress’s too), not mine.
Nonetheless, the knowledge gained by this collaboration will be of great benefit to a 20t-ish Mars lander that would be needed one day, one capable of landing and then providing transport for a small crew back up to Mars orbit. (This current 20t figure also assumes ISRU to load LOX for the ascent).
The current 20t approach in vogue has been written about by Strickland over at the Space Review. There’s definitely many ways to approach this, and he runs through this. Single piece (no staging, reusable) variants should remain on the table. As well, how that 20t gets on it’s way to Mars, the departure stage(s) can be sliced many ways, not necessarily in one SLS/EUS/Advanced Booster shot as is also out there (consider refueling, multiple stages mated versus one, etc)
Knowledge, speed of learning, and affordability are all key here. And that’s what makes this 5t landing (with 2t usable payload) so important.
No. It’s landing with propulsion. No bouncy balls, no parachutes, no goofy sky cranes. Nope. Landing with rockets changes everything.
The more I think about it, the more pieces seem to fall into place. I was about to say that I’d still use parachutes, since that would reduce the work the rockets have to do. But, now that I think of it, the existing SuperDracos on a Dragon 2 could, using the same fuel required for landing, also support a ~25 km ballistic hop if you could land and refuel. Quite a bit farther if you added more fuel. The acceleration would certainly allow that while a bare-bones minimum thrust to land would not.
Which would eliminate or reduce the accuracy required for the follow-on landings.
The required landing accuracy of the Mars Direct plan (and derivatives) always bothered me. This lander resolves the issue at least for the most part.
I don’t think that would work as stated. You would either need to carry extra fuel (which would zero out the payload) or find a way to refuel after landing. SuperDracos use MMH/NTO, and that isn’t easy to make on site.
Ballistic hops of this sort would be possible for some future vehicle: It would just need methane/oxygen engines and a small ISRU plant. A Red Dragon with no payload and extra MMN/NTO would also be a fine test of the concept. No one has ever taken off from Mars before.
The Red Dragon sample return mission spitballed by NASA Ames would do that with a second small vehicle carried inside the Dragon. That mission is looking a whole lot more plausible now.
Fantastic news. Just pulling off the basic “Red Dragon” idea – landing a multi-ton Dragon capsule on Mars successfully – would be helpful for future landing missions.
Wow. This is great news. Good luck to SpaceX, I can’t wait to see this.
5 MT to Mars surface is great…. for a robotic mission but is not in the class of Human missions nor does it scale up. The missing links are technique and technologies to land 20MT, not to mention ECLSS, power, Radiation, logistics yadda yadda yadda
SpaceX is going to soft land the biggest thing ever landed on another planet – one derived from a human-capable vehicle – and do so more than a decade before NASA does.
Lets not get ahead of ourselves Keith, SpaceX will “attempt” to soft land a Dragon which (not outfitted I’m sure) is on the upper end of the Robotic landing mission plausible capability. Long leap to land a Human capable vehicle.
These days SpaceX “attempts” – and then does – things that NASA can’t do or won’t try for many years to come. But you have already made your mind up on this, haven’t you.
Its just physics. BTW I’d be thrilled if SpaceX achieved a near precision (+- 10KM), soft landing of a 6 MT Dragon on the surface of Mars
The dragon could be empty with some mass onboard with some SALMAN payloads but NASA could purchase telemetry and EDL data like NASA will do with Lunar X prize
I disagree. This is many, many short steps from a manned mission, not one long leap. This is a profound difference from the apparent NASA approach. Instead of taking huge steps or long leaps, after many years of work on Earth, SpaceX is talking about taking the first steps within three years. Even if it fails, the approach would be try, look at the results, learn from it, and try again with a rapid turn-around time.
I’m also not sure what you mean by “not outfitted”. The mission would be outfitted for its purpose. That is, sufficient instrumentation to see how well it got to Mars, entered the atmosphere and landed. Also,.with about a tonne of payload capacity, they wouldn’t have trouble outfitting the mission with some quite valuable, scientific instruments. Even without NASA or other funding, I can think of people who would provide instruments for free in return for a free ride to Mars. I’ve got some ideas along those lines, and I just heard about this about 200 minutes ago.
I think this is a great mission. Five tons of robots can get a lot done.
That’s the key though. What is the plan for the MISSION? You know, other than “something big is there.” Can the Red Dragon deliver rovers, or does it have a sampling arm, what science packages, and if so… who is designing and building them?
Just to keep the numbers straight, I don’t think we are talking about five tonnes of instruments. The few-year old version of the Red Dragon involved a five or six tonne vehicle landing on Mars, with a payload capacity of about one tonne. Not five. But in comparison to other Mars missions, I agree that this would be fantastic. The Curiosity Rover was a landed vehicle mass.of a bit under one tonne, carrying 80 kg of instruments. So a five tonne.vehicle with one tonne of instruments is a huge difference.
Ah, Daniel, always thinking of robots 🙂
I wonder exactly how these robots or whatever they are would be stowed, how they would be exposed to Mars after landing (in order to acquire data, I suppose).
If there were any humor in this world they open a little hatch and sort of march out.
Remember this is Elon… he did put that cheese wheel in the first Dragon, IIRC. I wouldn’t put it past him to either have a pre-wound-up vintage toy robot amble outside… or maybe show a Marvin the Martin bobble-head looking out of a window.
He be in good company, the Spirit rover has an image of Marvin on it.
Marvin the Depressed Robot!
“Space! Don’t tell ME about space!”
Or all jump out at the same time, to avoid the pointless arguments over which robot was the first to walk on Mars.
Mars lander tonnage is not the same as the tonnage needed in LEO, which is a lander and some way, a stage, etc., of sending the lander (with Mars ascent capability) on it’s way to Mars. Scalability from a small Dragon lander to a larger TBD Mars lander does start with real world knowledge, which a relatively inexpensive project like this can advance significantly.
Many an approach has been proposed as well to send elements up that are empty, fitting well within Delta IV or Falcon Heavy capability to LEO (then refueling, mating stages, etc.) It doesn’t have to be all in one shot (SLS-style), which itself is a misnomer, as even SLS driven Mars campaigns involve many SLS launches, and in-space mates and de-mates, etc.
Whoa whoa whoa there pilgrim, it seems you are stumbling with the “devil in the details”. You can’t have it both ways. Of course there is a gear ratio between LEO mass and Landed Mars Mass, which is why I cast doubt on the fullness of the SpaceX statement embellished by some as being something not done before. Sending a “modified Dragon” in 2018 to soft land on Mars implies a 5-6MT class lander, period not a scale version. The LEO mass is his to solve but that is not the real challenge, the challenge is landing 5MT softly on Mars, Now if SpaceX is just sending a scale Model of a Dragon that weighs 2-3 MTs that’s already been done. And to send Humans to land on Mars requires somewhere upwards of 17MT to soft land. So SpaceX needs at least to achieve 2 major milestones along with all the minor steps to achieve each of them. 1st land a 5-6MT on Mars (not been done) then land a manned vehicle (not been done) and so that we compare apples to apples return the astronaut safely to Earth as NASA would do. I strongly doubt SpaceX can do this in the next 10 years or 20 years for that matter. Of course I “WISH” they could but for that darn physics.
No one is talking about a scaled down Dragon. The comment about a “smaller” Dragon was relative to a “larger TBD Mars lander” (i.e. a full-sized, 5-6 tonne Dragon is smaller than what you’d eventually want for a manned mission.)
Nor are there any of the problems with physics you complain about. This is entirely about about the development process. SpaceX likes to develop hardware by flying, sometimes failing, learning from errors, and improving. NASA likes to do lots and lots of design work and on-ground testing, in the hopes that the first flight will not fail. I think it’s quite possible that SpaceX could go from a Dragon landing to a manned mission it 20 years of trial and error. I also think it’s possible NASA could spend 20 years on design and testing, without being ready to fly a manned mission.
Hmmm…. “Nor are there any of the problems with physics you complain about” really, so its just a development process? I see so because you don’t understand the problem or the physics its therefore not a problem? Its clear you have no idea of what it would take to land a man on Mars. Although I will say, I sometimes wish I could be that way and “wish upon a Star” and all my dreams come true.
I’m quite familiar with the difficulties. It’s a long list, and I probably know of a number of items that are fairly obscure (since I once did some work on them.) They are, in my opinion, all engineering, not physics. Maybe, as a physicist, I’m using a more specific definition than you are. There is nothing which makes a manned landing on Mars physically impossible. The laws of physics may make the engineering problems very challenging, but not impossible.
For example, if a robotic Mars mission required teleoperation from Earth during the entry, decent and landing phase, I’d say that was physically impossible. The two-way light time is longer than the whole EDL phase, and you aren’t going to change the speed of light. On the other hand, I can say that the speed of light (the physical constraint) requires a sufficiently good autopilot for the vehicle to land itself. That’s an engineering problem. One imposed by a physical constraint, but one which can be solved.
So yes. Solving a long list of difficult engineering problems _is_ about the development process. If you try to solve all of them, in advance of flight test, it will take a very long time and you probably won’t get it right. If you start solving them, one or two at a time, with test flights and missions which are not on the scale of a manned landing, you make progress more rapidly. (In my opinion.)
Your extensive verbiage exposes your lack of understanding of the basic challenges to landing a Man on Mars and returning him back to Earth.
I really have doubts about this. One, there is no business reason to go to Mars. Two, much more than just a big rocket and a Dragon lander as pictured are needed (habitat module to house people for longer time than ISS occupancy and without periodic resupply flights from earth). Three, I keep hearing from New Space crowds for more than 10 years we will have common space tourist flights in just a couple years.
It seems nobody knows the true intentions and capabilities including problem areas of SpaceX except what Elon presents at news conferences. My suspicions is he really is working on something else. Like nobody knew Steve Jobs was thinking about the iPhone for many years until the product was launched.
This is a robotic mission to Mars, habitats have no relevance.
Who cares what you or I think about there being a “business reason” for doing this? Musk thinks that there is and its his money. Really – find a new complaint.
Agreed. Much of what SpaceX does would not please investors if SpaceX was a publicly traded company. It is for this very reason that Musk intends to keep SpaceX private for the foreseeable future.
Your instincts are correct.
One of the benefits of being a multi-billionaire, and owning a private company…
The maximization of profits and return on equity are not necessarily the main goals nor the primary motivations behind such a company’s mission and strategies.
Howard Hughes recall him? enough said 🙂
Not to be snarky but “because we can” is sufficient justification. The lessons learned from this will pave the way for more aggressive programs and eventual human exploration. It is Musk learning to walk before he runs.
Well yes, he’s ultimately working on MCT. This is a first step.
Cheers
Still don’t understand why SpaceX hasn’t hired Robert Zubrin to start design work on, cargo manifests, and landing areas etc. This could perhaps be a peace deal between SpaceX and Bigelow Aerospace as both would vested interests in getting there and staying there.
Bigelow Aerospace is interested in the Moon, not Mars. But I am sure he will be glad to provide habitats for Mars.
it’s because Bob Zubrin is a dinosaur that has been banging the “my way is the only way to go to Mars” drum for the last 20 years! SpaceX is actually DOING something, not just talking about it!
Zubrin has done lots of NASA SBIR reverse gas shift about ISRU and Methane and Propylene useful to think about
As I understand it much of that help is coming from NASA. In some ways SpaceX’ plans – as far as we know which is admittedly little – are a sort of Mars Direct, so in that sense Zubrin has done his work.
I’ve been watching Zubrin on YouTube over the last few weeks, watching as his head loses hair but the fire remains in speech after speech over the decades. While he didn’t get what he wanted, exactly, in the end his influence on the way we think about Mars will be prophetic.
I hope he lives long enough to see it.
So they’re planning to send a capsule the size of a Dodge Maxi-Van to Mars and soft land it on the surface by 2018? With what kind of booster, parachutes and thermal protection system? And does this stunt really get us closer to manned exploration of Mars…I don’t think so.
I guess there is no pleasing you. This will be the largest thing to soft land on another planet. They will do it in a few years. NASA is still more than a decade away from doing so.
Some people don’t read past the headlines, Keith.
The booster will be a stock Falcon Heavy. Mars EDL is using the standard Dragon-2 TPS and the stock Dragon LES/Landing propulsion system. I’m not sure but, the last calculation I saw was that the Superdraco cluster and aerodynamic drag on the hull, along with the stock abort ‘chutes towards the end of the descent, should be able to allow a soft landing at the bottom of the Hellas Basin (the lowest point on Mars’ surface).
It will provide the first actual supersonic retro-propulsion data from Mars and so will be of absolutely inestimable value in both designing a crewed landing system and also determining how to get it safely to the ground. So, yeah, it will be important and NASA will probably end up trying to claim it is part of their Journey to Mars.
At ASCE Earth and Space 2012 SpaceX presented on a Mars mission to drill for water and life. I wonder if this is the mission they will do. Here is a link to a later paper on it.
http://online.liebertpub.co…
Wouldn’t it really upset NASA’s apple cart if they fly this mission and find life on Mars? I hope they get their launch license and do it. It will be fun to watch, and even more disruptive then Tesla was 🙂
Will the stock parachutes tolerate the opening shock? Most Mars landers have to deploy chutes while supersonic.
If I understand correctly, the SpaceX retro-propulsion landing system on Dragon Crew doesn’t need parachutes (except as a safety back up for launch or landing on earth). With regards to large payloads to Mars, including astronauts someday, I think that may be the most significant aspect of the recent first stage returns, in addition to reusability.
Perhaps use the SuperDracos in addition to aerodynamic drag to help slow the capsule before deploying the parachutes? Then you fire the SuperDracos again for the final landing.
Also, remember that Mars gravity is about 0.38 of Earth’s, so the SuperDracos on that 5 ton Dragon would need only contend with handling a 1.9 ton load. That ought to give Red Dragon a decent margin in longer burn times at a lower than Earth-typical landing thrust. (and actually, that might give an incentive for SpaceX to add a little more science equipment on board.)
Red Dragon of any type will not have parachutes aboard. The chutes are heavy and bulky with little utilization in the Mars atmosphere.
It will be interesting to see if SpaceX can deploy some sort of rover from the Red Dragon. Musk is testing out the rover software and hardware with his side business at Fremont more or less.
Red Dragon mission design papers!
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archiv… ***
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archiv…
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archiv…
*** it’s all about aerodynamic deceleration and retropropulsion no parachutes
Thanks for the links to the papers!
I am missing a few I know there is one paper that shows Dragon lifting/ gaining altitude after a low trough before retropropulsion
I am missing a few papers , there is one Red Dragon Paper that shows Dragon EDL with a near surface approach with a aerodynamic lifting back up into the atmosphere and subsequent retrofitting so dragon briefly flies bleeding off even more speed 🙂
Booster: Falcon Heavy
Parachutes: None
TPS: PICA-X3
Closer to manned exploration of Mars: Yes
Anything else we can help you with?
Yes, can you tell me if this information is current? You seem to be describing the Red Dragon concept which was floated as a possible Discovery mission. The vehicle is probably similar, but there could be differences. The payload could easily be different. (That applies to other posts on the subject, since you didn’t mention payload.) What they are talking about today isn’t necessarily what they were thinking of a few years ago. I’d like to hear more about the _current_ plans.
How about Elon Musk for NASA Administrator?
Nah, Elon’s got a good job.
Elon in a politically motivated job where his hands are always tied behind his back? No way, EVER.
look how long stern lasted as a NASA employee
Will be curious to see how SpaceX handles planetary protection. Or not.
They will – and are – working this issue.
MEPAG and the landing site committee lists sites that are and are not require quarantine drilling always will require this rovers not always
Grab a few Trojans (asteroids) while en route. Boom…instant planetary protection. 🙂
This is more than just the Dragon Mars landing demo.
🙂
Hopefully several in 2020, SpaceX needs that cadence to stay on track. Hopefully the 2018 payload include an ISRU plant to demo fuel production.
This might make Zubrin pee his pants. Or me, can’t figure which.
Why not both?
I’ll be curious to see what they have in mind for a power source on the surface. Unless they are working closely with NASA, they wouldn’t have access to RTGs.
They won’t have access to RTGs. Plutonium production is starting up again, but they won’t have produced enough for an RTG before 2018. Until production ramps up, RTGs are largely spoken for already. I don’t remember the exact schedule (it’s presented at almost every OPAG meeting, so you can look it up) but I don’t think SpaceX will use one.
Which leaves the interesting option of deploying relatively large solar arrays after landing. For a mission of that size, they’d need more than the few square meters past missions have used. I’m curious how they plan to unfold the panels.
Purely speculation, but the mission might run strictly on battery power. I’m told this Musk guy knows a little something about batteries…
Possibly the mission would be limited to simply landing safely, with no need for additional power beyond firing up a radio? That would be consistent with the Hawthorne Method, wouldn’t it?
Not much point really in carrying millions of $$ in gear on a mission like this when the point is to learn how to do a soft, propelled landing.
That would be similar to the ExoMars Schiaparelli lander. It’s almost purely a technology demonstration for entry, decent and landing, and currently on the way to Mars. It’s much smaller than what SpaceX is planning (literally an order of magnitude smaller, at 600 kg) but it would be the first ESA landing and they think a test is important prior to the 2018 ExoMars mission with a scientific lander/rover. The Russians offered to supply a RTG, but the project eventually decided they did not need a long surface lifetime and would just use batteries.
I agree about putting a multi-million dollar payload on an engineering test. That’s not a bright idea, as Ariane 501/Cluster proved ($370 million.)
On the other hand, we have discussed how this mission changes the normal ways of doing things. If we know there is a significant risk of failure, and skip the usual NASA design and development process, we could throw together some good instruments for well under $1 million. They might not work (since they are not developed in a way designed to produce well over 90% reliability), but since we’re already accepting a risk of failure, who cares. I can think of a few possibilities along these lines.
A key requirement would be to avoid causing problems for the primary mission. Since it’s over once it’s landed, that shouldn’t be hard. Leave the science payload off until just after landing, make some considerations for keeping the center of mass where it needs to be, and make the last thing Red Dragon does opening a hatch and turning the instrument package on. A trickle charge for some batteries would also be nice.
This would be a CubeSat-like approach of accepting risk to take advantage of a free ride, while keeping cost down (and therefore risk acceptable.)
If they are going to Mars they will need to get the launch license submitted now, especially if the will be drilling for water. It will be interesting to see what happens when they submit it, and how NASA reacts. My guess is this will be a very educating experience for Elon Musk in terms of his dreams for Mars.
Which DSN resources are they gonna be using?
I haven’t seen any details, but there aren’t many choices when it comes to DSN resources. At.least.not if you mean the antennas. The 70-m stations are getting old and subject to maintenance down time. The DSN’s policy is to encourage new missions to use the 34-m stations, use Ka instead of X band for downlink, and array 34-m stations rather than planning on using 70-m’s. And to build more 34-m stations. I suspect that’s what a Red Dragon mission would. At the same time, a one to two meter antenna shouldn’t be a problem on a vehicle that big, and that’s huge for a Mars lander. I doubt they will have any downlink problems. Tracking for navigation during cruise to Mars will probably be the driver for DSN requirements.
Perhaps NASA could contribute in kind government owned contribution the laser communications system SpaceX in turn could commercialize it
And how do you navigate and time your burns using these frikkin laser beams?
Light waves and radio waves are both forms of electromagnetic radiation. There is no reason that navigation and timing of burns would be fundamentally different for laser communications when compared to radio wave communication.
Does anyone know or care to speculate if the deal with NASA may or may not include access the the current satellites in Mars orbit to be used as relays, much like how comm with the landers and rovers?
Refusing to help provide communications would be a PR disaster for NASA, IMHO.
No need to speculate. NASA will be providing Deep Space Network resources for this mission to use in getting its data back to Earth. That includes the orbiters. The imaging orbiters will actually be watching the entry descent and landing to acquire additional data.
Err… Have you got a source for that? The actual statements by SpaceX and by Dr. Newman did not contain a wealth of detail. Have you seen anything more specific, or are you assuming NASA would provide whatever resources are requested, just because there is some unspecified cooperative agreement?
I certainly agree that NASA will probably provide some form of telecom support. But I don’t know the details. If the mission’s downlink requirements can be satisfied with a small (0.5-1 meter) high gain antenna, and they certainly have room for one, then I doubt they would bother using the orbital relays.
Try this from Doug Messier over at Parabolic Arc.
That helps, and I see I’ve repeated a question you mostly answered. (I’m afraid crossing messages are hard to avoid when there are over 150 comments.)
But I see NASA providing telecom services (not, specifically, relay from the Mars orbiters, just services of some unspecified sort) and advice about navigation, EDL and planetary protection. I also see a paper study out of NASA’s Ames Research Center, about what a hypothetical Red Dragon mission could do. All this involves a cooperative agreement signed in December, 2014 and (oddly) containing a November, 2014 kickoff meeting as the first “milestone.” Clearly, SpaceX has been working on this for at least a year and a half. I’d actually be surprised in they hadn’t been working on it for longer.
I do not, however, see anything about NASA funding for instruments, nor for any other sort of hardware. I don’t see any NASA involvement, from 2014 to present, except paper studies and providing advice and information.
So I still don’t know what sort of payload or instruments SpaceX plans to fly or who would be involved. It _could_ be the Ames idea for a drill and in situ analysis. It could be something quire different. Since the recent announcement mentioned a landing/engineering test, I suspect it will not involve a sample return. Note that this was discussed in the Ames study, so just being in the study doesn’t mean it’s part of the actual 2018 mission.
My bit about NASA-provided instrumentation is, admittedly, an assumption, but not an unreasonable one. I’m sure more details about the roughly two tonne payload will be forthcoming soon.
But I think there is probably already a significant stampede by NASA-employed or affiliated investigators looking to get their pet gadgets included in the manifest. Mission opportunities for planetary scientists are rare and SpaceX just conjured a new one – with a record-large payload – out of thin air. The boffins will be looking upon this as manna from heaven and they will be correct to do so.
I can guarantee there are “NASA-employed or affiliated investigators” thinking about it. I’m just not sure about the timing. I’m just not sure about the schedule.
The last instrument proposal I was involved in (not selected) was for the Europa mission. From release of the AO (well, SALMON-2 program element) to selection took ten months. I don’t think there is only so much they can do to speed that up, without violating federal procurement regulations. So the normal instrument development process isn’t going to work on a two-year schedule.
I think it will have to be some sort of accelerated process, and probably not with a class A risk posture. The easiest way for NASA to fund it would be internally, at a NASA center, but they’re still struggling to fit CubeSats (non-Class A missions) into their institutional processes. The other alternative would be SpaceX subcontracts, but I don’t know if they are interested. Underwriting scientific research probably isn’t part of their strategic plan. (Although I could be wrong: SpaceX isn’t exactly a traditional aerospace company.)
It will be interesting to see what they do, and if someone sources of funding are following this, I’ve already got a couple of ideas. But it’s also going to be hard to get outside. The 0.8-m diameter at the top is going to be valuable real estate.
The frequency resolution on radio (heterodyne) receivers is really good. I don’t know if you could pull out mm/s doppler shifts from an optical signal. It would certainly take a very good spectrometer and not necessarily the sort NASA is using to test laser communications. Ranging is easier, but the equipment on both ends needs to be designed to support this. It could be done but I don’t know if it has been done.
Google how a gravity wave detector works. It’s amazing how well this works with lasers.
I know how gravity wave detectors work, and I probably shouldn’t have said that mm/s doppler shift from an optical signal might not be possible. You’d need a resolution (lambda/delta-lambda) of 3e12, and interferometry to do that (calling it a half-wavelength difference) would need a 75 km optical path. That’s possible, but NASA doesn’t have a ground station for optical communications which can support that. I’m not even sure if they have an operational (rather than experimental) optical ground station at all. So it’s possible, but it won’t be available for anything launching in 2018.
NASA might even pay SpaceX to try laser communications. That was, more or less, how laser communications was treated in the last Discovery AO. But that’s still experimental and it’s never been used farther from the Earth than the Moon. This would be about testing the technology, not relying on it for anything mission-critical. The state of the art just isn’t there yet. Also, I’m not sure if you can use laser communications for navigation. It’s possible in theory, but I don’t know if the existing (or easily developed) hardware can get range and rate off an optical link.
Actually, 25 million kms laser link to/from MESSENGER in 2006, carrier only.
http://www.space.com/1900-r…
Fair enough. I should have said hardware capable of useful data rates (let alone greater than radio) has never been tested from farther than the Moon. Just blinking the light off and on isn’t the same as a telecom system ready for operational use.
Well, there is more than one DSN network in the world. Using any of these pretty booked resources would require some agreements in place though. Early
Downlink is not the real question, tracking and nav is
I’m sorry, I thought you meant the NASA DSN. I’m used to seeing other countries’ written out as a “deep space network” rather than using the acronym.) But I suspect SpaseX would use NASA’s. They already have some cooperative agreements in place, and expanding them to cover DSN use would be easier than fresh negotiations with, for example, ESA. For NASA’s DSN, there are lots of missions using it, and the resources are a bit strained. But the negotiation process is well-established and two years notice isn’t too short. One to two years advanced notice, for rough planning purposes, something like six months for the actual requests, and final allocation sometimes don’t come out a month in advance. At least that’s about what I’ve seen from work on Cassini science planning.
A month? Gotta make you guys a bit nervous.
I don’t think anyone is nervous. Just annoyed (sometimes mildly, sometimes really, really unset.) Cassini is a project that likes carefully planning observations six months to a year in advance. Revising that on short notice because of DSN scheduling sometimes throws out a person-week of hard work done a year earlier.
But it’s generally a manageable problem. For really important observations, we can push back and tell the DSN schedulers it’s really important that we get the downlinks we planned on having. (That only works well, because the project rarely makes such a big deal about it.) Otherwise, the data goes on a recorder for later playback. Getting a 70-meter on Monday and a 34-meter on Tuesday isn’t too different from swapping them. Sometimes, the change would mean overfilling the recorder, and that means someone has to modify (slightly degrade) the observations. Mostly, it means extra work to send up commands to command higher downlink rates on one day and lower rates on another, or changing instrument modes. It’s extra work, inefficient and annoying. But not something to get nervous about. Nervous is what people get when someone says, “what if the situation gets worse than it is today?”
I do read the Cassini status email, often wishing it contained more detail like this.
But there isn’t a barge on Mars to crash into. 🙂
You must have missed the news, SpaceX had a successful landing on a drone ship three weeks ago.
Although assuming you knew that and were just joking, I suppose in the future when there are permanent bases on Mars there might be landing pads that they would be aiming for.
There are no oceans on Mars, so the barge comment is clearly an absurd joke (note the smiley).
Yep, I certainly understood that he did not literally mean landing on literal barges on literal oceans on Mars. I didn’t even need a smiley face to figure that out. What I meant by joking was referring to kidding humor vs. snarky humor, which the wording by itself implied snarky humor, and there are a lot of snarky comments about SpaceX. But the smiley face indicated to me that he was probably just using kidding humor which is why I said I assumed he was just joking, giving him the benefit of the doubt. Also the joke was worded as if all SpaceX barge attempts had crashed, that’s what I was questioning also but tried to give benefit of the doubt that he probably already knew that this wasn’t the case. And on further reflection I realize it is unlikely that he wouldn’t have known that, as it was sort of a hard story to miss.
I do find the thought of landing pads on Mars interesting though, it would take some effort to construct, obviously not using concrete but I wonder if there is the possibility of using Mars soil to create essentially adobe, which of course requires water so it would only be practical if they have a natural water source. Not sure how well that would work with Martian soil, and not exactly a blazing sun on Mars either, and it would be sort of comical I suppose to have cargo shipments of straw being sent to Mars 🙂 smiley face I am kidding, but I wonder if this idea has already been considered and dismissed of using adobe for some construction. I suppose an adobe landing pad might get blown apart by the rocket exhaust but I don’t know. Or maybe there is some other practical way to build landing pads, using rocks maybe, sort of like a rock garden, covered with a nonflammable material to avoid rocks being sent flying by the exhaust. If landing pads aren’t practical then I guess they will always have to land in the dirt and blow Martial soil all over the place.
Tough crowd 🙂
I’d like to note that this announcement happened on the same day that I read a story on another site saying NASA is cutting funding for the Low Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) project, which would be a key enabling technology for landing very large payloads on Mars.
Thank Congress for this, since they moved the RESTORE-L servicing mission into NASA’s science budget.
Ok, it’s a large lander. What I can’t wrap my mind around is what will it transport? Is there a way on putting a rover on RD? Given that this will also be the hardest propulsion-to-surface landing, won’t they need to get any science equipment pretty far away from the landing site, in order to get away from the exhaust by-products/contamination of the Super Dracos?
The only confirmed experiment for Red Dragon is a core sampling package. The cabin will contain an automated geochemical analysis lab. A core sampler drill will bore through the TPS down several metres into the Martian regolith before drawing its find up into the analysis lab.
I wouldn’t be surprised if there were also meteorological sensors and maybe panoramic high-resolution 3D cameras in an upper experiment bay that opens through where the NIDS port would be on a normal Dragon-2.
Sample return is high on the decadal survey PI usually under an AO, this however is a private mission so a payload might be paid for under SALMAN funding
That.might be interesting. But we don’t have enough details to be sure. SALMON (stand-alone mission of opportunities) are generally NASA-funded instruments which get a free ride on another nation’s or agency’s spacecraft. GOLD is going to fly on a commercial spacecraft, and they may have paid for it. If so, that’s the only case I can think of. If SpaceX wants to _sell_ payload space, the legal mechanisms may not be in place. A 2018 launch doesn’t give much time to do that, select instruments and build them. On the.other hand SpaceX and NASA could reach some agreement (e.g. NASA providing DSN support for free and SpaceX flying some payload for free.) That might work, but two to two and a half years isn’t much time for typical NASA instrument selecting and development.
Curiosity rover/cruise stage flew a radiation experiment to inform us of human physiology we should fly this on Dragon
DSN is generally free to missions, with a couple of exceptions. SpaceX will need navigation & guidance, unless I’m missing something.
They’ll need navigation and guidance. But the DSN is only free for NASA missions, and not always then. Some Discovery AO have required estimates of DSN costs, and including those costs in the “total cost to NASA” (although not within the cost cap.) For foreign missions, NASA typically doesn’t expect payment in cash, but it involved some sort of memorandum of understanding and a trade (e.g. including a US instrument in the payload.) I’m not sure if a private company has ever asked for DSN time before. I suspect NASA would agree, and not send a bill, but I think they would ask for something in return.
They’ll be getting something in return – all of SpaceX’s on-board data on the entire EDL process plus additional data of other kinds gathered later on the Martian surface. NASA’s assets in Mars orbit will be used to both observe and gather additional data on the EDL and DSN will be used to transmit all gathered data back to Earth.
No, you’re not. DSN access and guidance and navigation assistance are part of the deal. NASA’s Mars orbiters will be watching the EDL process too.
NASA and SpaceX have been working on this mission since late 2014.
I don’t think that’s accurate. Some people at a NASA center have done some very preliminary (pre-phase A) work with SpaceX, related to a proposal (or planned proposal) for a Discovery mission. NASA (the ones paying the bills) did not select or fund such a mission. As far as I can tell, the work from 2013 or 2014 was a fairly limited concept study. NASA, or people working for NASA, do those all the time with no real commitment to fly it. Even when/if the concept is selected for development and flight, the actual mission is often extremely different from the original concept study. The studies usually talk about a “notional payload” and clearly state that different instruments could end up on the real mission.
That’s how NASA does missions it pays for. They aren’t in the driver’s seat on this one.
This mission got underway in Nov. 2014.
The science equipment would be inside the capsule. Quite safe from the rocket blasts. If they are drilling straight down then they just need to get below the surface.
Rovers might be possible, would need a pretty long ramp inside the capsule or a redesign of the hatch location.
But I wouldn’t expect much in the way of uncontaminated surface composition work ( or even studies of local dust and small rock distribution) near the landing site. But that just limits the types of science, and it doesn’t limit it by much.
Or a robotic arm that would move a rover through the hatch. Such an arm could also be used to take pictures, samples, and etc.
Why not? This is essentially a Dragon V2, so should have a side hatch. A rover could be deployed by opening that side hatch.
I hope they have some kind of mini-rover with a camera that could drive far enough way to turn around and take pictures of the landing site.
Seriously Dava?
“When he [President Obama] laid out his plans for NASA and the
Journey to Mars in 2010…” Dava Newman
President Obama did not lay out plans for NASA’s Journey to Mars in 2010. That is just a “slogan” created by NASA last year. Do your research. Obama said we are next going to an asteroid in 2010, he added: “By the mid-2030s I believe we can send people to orbit Mars and bring them safely back to Earth. A Landing on Mars will follow, and “I expect to be around to see it,”
Does that sound like a mandate? It was 10 seconds of a 20 minute speech. He was focused on technology innovation, commercial partnerships and damage control for trying to cancel CxP.
“We’re closer to sending humans to Mars than ever before”
Dava Newman
This statement has become a joke. Of course we are closer to doing everything in the future than ever before. That is how “time” works. Every day we are a day closer to sending humans to Mars and closer to finding life in the Universe and closer to the end of our lives.
Allow NASA to give itself political cover. NASA is part of the executive branch and as such the executive needs to be stroked. Good for Dava – so glad she is our deputy dog.
And as a Republican if this is what needs to be said to stoke the private sector in space (and inside NASA) I have no problem with Obama being mentioned. It is not a joke. As much as you need the F=MA you also need the political support.
Democrat or Republican, President of the United States means something.
Happy to see this coming. The House Science Committee should be interesting. This is huge. There are huge implications here. You are talking about “touching” a lot of new people with this kind of a mission.
The perception that this is a private deal will really kindle a new sense of entrepreneurial spirit. The reality is that NASA is heavily involved with this as well. Look at the SAAs that have been signed.
Spacex will be relying on NASA for a lot of data and nav work. This is a good thing. NASA will be handing over many important skill sets to the private sector. There is still a lot of work to be done but this has been floated since 2012.
And of course you still need FH working… and lets not kid ourselves… there will be growing pains.
Its a great day to be a space exploration and settlement fan.
I’ve never checked, but what is the mass and volume of a DNA sequencer? How much would that go up if you had to space-rate it? How much would it go down if you redesigned it with mass/volume minimization in mind? I’m familiar with space flight mass spectrometers, and I know they are nowhere as capable as the room-sized instruments used in terrestrial labs. But if you gave me 1000 kg, maybe a similar quality instrument would be possible. I don’t have a similar understand of DNA sequencers.
Could you be more specific? Is the requirement to “continuously supervise” part of the language in the Outer Space Treaty, or is it a State Department interpretation of the treaty?
My result of a quick search is that the only source for this is a tweet from SpaceX. Have I missed something? If this is right then I am very sad at the sorry state of news reporting. Spaceref & you are only propagating hype, there’s no details, no plan, no nothing. If NASA tweeted “NASA will land on Pluto in 2020” would you believe it?
Granted SpaceX has a solid proven record but still, this is a tall order from what they’re currently doing. One immediate question for me is “who’s paying for this?” Even if SpaceX have the technical capacity, I would be amazed if they were able to self-fund a Falcon Heavy plus a Dragon.
And second question, unless they have a major scientific payload in advanced development this would be a much-deriled “flags & footprints” (which nobody seems to want NASA to do) except without the footprints, and possibly, without the flag.
Time will tell if this is hype, but all of the hardware needed for such a mission is currently in (quite active) development. Other news stories on other sites have reported that NASA has acknowledged that they’re helping with this proposed mission by providing technical support. So, it’s as real as it can be, IMHO.
By comparison, NASA’s tweets that Orion will take astronauts to Mars is hype, IMHO. NASA has recently cut funding for the inflatable reentry demonstrator due to Congressionally mandated earmarks which effectively reduced their science funding. So, not only is NASA not developing a manned Mars lander, they’ve had to cut funding for one of the enabling technologies that would help enable landing large payloads on Mars (i.e. HAB, return vehicle, manned lander, and etc.).
Post from Dava Newman, Deputy Administrator of NASA, yesterday:
“we’re particularly excited about an upcoming SpaceX project that would build upon a current “no-exchange-of-funds” agreement we have with the company. In exchange for Martian entry, descent, and landing data from SpaceX, NASA will offer technical support for the firm’s plan to attempt to land an uncrewed Dragon 2 spacecraft on Mars.”
https://blogs.nasa.gov/newm…
Prepare to be amazed, then. SpaceX is doing this one on their own dime.
As for the scientific content of the mission, the main objective is to gather beaucoup data on aerobraking, supersonic retropropulsion and powered landing on Mars. There is also possibly going to be a drill capable of probing the Martian soil down to a depth of a meter or two to look for water and life forms. This mission is only now being announced, but SpaceX and NASA have been working on it since late 2014.
No flags. No footprints.
Having read the links and details of the agreement, I sort of stand by my statement. There is no exchange of funds in the agreement with NASA, so it’s basically access to data and knowledge. Very valuable no doubt (although I’d say most of it is publicly available) but doesn’t pay for a mission to Mars.
So, still two points. First, Money. Duheagle mentions SpaceX is doing that on their own dime. Unlike developing the Dragon and Falcons, there is -no- short or medium-term way to recoup investment for this that I can see. So basically SpaceX has several 100s of M$ spare that the shareholders are ready to litterally burn. Maybe, but if so then if I was a SpaceX customer I’d want to have a chat about those launch prices.
Second, schedule. Mars launch opportunities with current rockets are 16/18 etc… The ESA Exomars rover is launching in 18. It’s been in development for donkey’s years. True it’s been plagued by funding woes, SpaceX are more efficient yada yada. Still, if they really want to launch in 2018 they must already been integrating the flight hardware. So far no evidence of this. We remember that, unlike commercial and ISS launches, launch windows for planetary missions are fairly strict. Is it really likely they’ll be ready with a FH in 18 months’time when they haven’t yet launched one?
I believe in many NewSpace facts but this, is hype, like the thousands of satellites talking point. In my view Elon Musk is sort of losing it a little bit. His very real successes are getting to his head.
I’m not sure why the customers would complain. They are getting a service for a lower cost than they would have to pay from someone else. Why should they care how much of that is profit for SpaceX or what SpaceX spends it on? That would be like complaining about the cost of Microsoft products because you don’t like how Bill Gates spends his money.
But as far as the schedule goes, it is pretty ambitious, but not insanely so. They already have a vehicle; Red Dragon would be a modified version of a Dragon 2, so they are essentially already at phase C/D. The Apollo CSM was very heavily modified after the Apollo 1 fire, and arguably the differences were greater than those between Dragon 2 and Red Dragon. That was done and flown with astronauts (Apollo 7) in 21 months. For unmanned missions, Deep Space 1 went from a blank piece of paper to launch in under four years.
In many cases, the long development schedule you see from NASA and ESA (e.g. ExoMars TGO) is from a process focused on finding the optimal design. I’ve seen how it works from the inside, and if you could simply throw mass and power at problems (high margin used whenever you run into a problem), if you are satisfied with something that will work and use the most expedient designs (rather than working hard to find better ones, even if only marginally better), and streamline the approval process, I think 18 months isn’t impossible. Ambitious, but not insanely so.
In fact, if the goal of the mission is a landing test, then they could do it without any scientific payload (although that would be a shame.)
In addition, I don’t know what SpaceX’ risk posture is like. If they treat this like their Falcon barge landings (if it doesn’t work, shrug it off, make some improvements and try again) they could really cut down the development schedule.
I do agree about the Falcon Heavy. The launch windows are fairly broad (over a week, especially if you have margin in the launch vehicle) and there are actually two, one slightly before and one slightly after the traditional Hohmann solution. I think that’s February and May for 2018. That’s five to seven months after the current estimate for the first Falcon Heavy launch, and that date has been slipping.
The Red Dragon mission isn’t going to cost “several 100s of M$.” I suspect the full out-of-pocket for SpaceX is going to be $20 million or less. Barring any recovery failures, the Falcon Heavy’s three cores will be living to fly another day. The 2nd stage will be expended and so will the Dragon itself.
But Red Dragon won’t include a lot of what needs to go on the crew version including some fairly expensive bits. No ISS rendezvous and docking hardware and avionics, for instance. No environmental control system suitable to keep 7 humans alive for two weeks either. And no crew seats, no control console, no fancy interior, no interior lighting – wah da do dah.
It’ll be essentially the hull and engines of a Dragon 2 with a lot of instrumentation and experiment hardware crammed in and probably an environmental control unit borrowed from the current cargo Dragon just capable enough to keep the electronics happy. Much of the science and data-taking gear will probably be NASA-provided equipment.
Don’t worry. Elon isn’t going to have to skip any meals to pay for this.
And neither SpaceX nor NASA just started working on this mission. It’s been underway since late 2014.
You’ve said they have been working on this since 2014. Who has been working on it, and at what level of effort/funding? Delivering instruments two years before launch isn’t atypical for a NASA mission, so worrying about the schedule is reasonable. But work on the Red Dragon hasn’t been funded by NASA’s Discovery program, by the Mars program. A private company can hide millions in internal development work from the public, but government agencies can’t. I haven’t seen any evidence of NASA work, at the level of actually building hardware, in support of this mission.
Although not his primary objective, it seems that Musk may soon be able to provide relatively low cost delivery of scientific payloads to Mars. Even though this might not work for all missions, it would seem to open up Mars to researchers (and countries) who currently don’t have the capability or finances needed to develop a Mars landing scientific mission.
Actually, this was the genesis of the idea for SpaceX. Musk wanted to fly a simple experiment to Mars, but getting there would have been far too expensive. So, it occurred to him that step 1 would need to be lowering the cost of getting a payload to Mars. That is the very reason he formed SpaceX.
If Musk really can land a Red Dragon on Mars, he will have finally accomplished step 1.
Your comment is a nice one and I agree with the gist of it, although I don’t think it relates to what I said. The genesis for SpaceX was not at its core about science experiments. The experiment that you mentioned was not really a scientific one per se, Musk believed that placing a miniature greenhouse on Mars would strike a cord with people’s imaginations and generate public support for efforts to colonization space, which is where his interests lie.
And science is not the objective of Red Dragon, at least not for SpaceX. Although in their symbiotic relationship with NASA, SpaceX will be assisting NASA in their science goals, while SpaceX meanwhile gleans from NASA needed expertise (and yes finances) for accomplishing SpaceX’s long term human colonization goals.
And although yes as a sentimental thought, if Red Dragon lands science experiments on Mars this accomplishes (surpasses really) the technical aspect of the original idea, I think Musk is way past looking at it as an inspirational performance, Musk is now riding a freight train of accomplishment at the moment and the first Red Dragon flight is looked at I would think like he looks at the first booster landing, as purely a technical development step.
My point was that a side benefit, depending on how it works out, researchers not as heavily funded as the big players – NASA, ESA, et al, will hopefully now have an opportunity to do science on Mars.
What would be good is for SpaceX to land it and have it take off again. A sample return mission has been talked about for a long time but always put off because of the cost.
Also, they say as early as 2018 so it could be years later before they accomplish it. Will be interesting to watch. Hopefully sooner than later.
I doubt this could be done with a single Falcon Heavy launch. Sample return nearly doubles the delta-V needed to perform the mission.
You might find this interesting.
I thought this was about LANDING only?
No return trip. Like someone else said before, all the pieces to send a Dragon to Mars are in place or in active development at SpaceX. A propulsive landing on Mars by a SpaceX capsule will blow away all previous achievements by NASA. It will probably be later than they claim, but all the ducks are lined up to make this possible. I presume the capsule would be heavily instrumented to pave the way to obtain its “Certificate of Occupancy” for a future crew. This is great news!
http://www.scientificameric… I hope this works. Even if it takes longer. Ballistic capture. Not too good for people. Cargo though. There might be a need to send cargo out of the 2 year window.
they haven’t put a single live human into orbit and they’re talking about Mars. If the schedule is anything like the current program schedule then NASA has nothing to worry about until at least 2025.
So a company that has only put hardware into space, is talking about putting more hardware into space and you complain about how a company that has only put hardware into space is not putting people into space?
Here is an amazing fact about a lot of American companies. They can actually do more than one thing at once.
What does this comment: “They haven’t put a single live human into orbit” have to with Spx sending an unmanned Red Dragon to Mars in 2018?
You do know that the Red Dragon mission being discussed is unmanned right?
So they basically plan on delivering some trash to the surface of Mars – great.
The idea of a private company even contemplating doing what Spx wants to do should make any space fan excited about the future.
So either:
1. You are not a true space fan
2, You work for a competitor and will bash them no matter what
3. You are a troll
Which is why it will be educational for Elon Musk. But that is also why he pays lobbyists. It would be easy enough to add an amendment to a space or DOT bill to fix it.
BTW the groundwork is already in place, Section 108 of the CSLCA requires that the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Office submit a report to the appropriate Congressional committees of changes needed in supervision to enable the expansion of space commerce activities. This mission should qualify 🙂
Speaking of which, that report was required in 120 days, so it should just about finished.
My prediction. First FH in Q2 2017. Second FH in 2018. First red dragon in 2022.
I’m hoping SpaceX proves me wrong!!
What’s this obsession with Mars? I guess ever since HG Wells people see it as a second Earth (for me I don’t as it’s smaller, virtual vacuum, hard radiation, desert, and a very very long ways away). Then there’s the Moon, only three days away and yet nobody talks about that place except Dennis Wingo and Paul Spudis. Just asking.
A large amount of in situ resources which can be obtained by running a pump and a compressor. Anything you can get on the Moon requires a shovel and an astronaut to dig. (Well, probably not that bad, but it is a process of digging up regolith, and that’s much harder than turning on a pump.)
It is much easier to live on Mars than on the Moon. On Mars, there’s a lot more and fairly easily extractable water, there is higher gravity, some atmosphere – which both moderates the day / night temperatures and provides some radiation protection – also there are ample other resources that can be easily extracted from the environment – water being prime among them but other materials in the soil and gases in the atmosphere as well – and to top it all off, the length of the day is very similar to the length of the day on Earth, which means it is possible to use solar power as the primary energy source.
This is certainly the sort of clever incremental move I expect from space-x, not a one shot and it’s over approach but a step on the road approach one that builds on previous work and paves the way for future even more ambitious missions. people talk about 5 tonne v 20 + tonne, seems to me that’s perhaps a too simplistic way to look at it. if the 2018 mission is successful then who is to say Space-x won’t launch 5 or 6 more Probably uprated Dragon’s in the next window (quite feasible judging by their scaling up of production and increasing potential for 1st stage reusability) each one loaded with several tonnes of useful supplies. Right it’s now at just 2021 and we have tonnes of supplies ready and waiting. Meanwhile Space-x have been working on their latest launch vehicle which can now loft 100+ tonnes they have also been working on a new test ascent vehicle which is launched in the 2022 window along with potentially another 5-10 cargo missions including oxygen generators fuel generators, solar panels, waste water processors etc. etc. Come the next launch window in 2024 Space-x has completed launching, testing its first basic MCT capable of transporting 20+ people to mars along with potentially another round of supplies, habitats etc. and In 2025 Elon Musk proudly watches as his first group of astronauts take their first steps on the surface of Mars. Sounds impossible and certainly it’s a lot easier said than done but if anyone can pull it off it’s Space-x even if their schedule slips they will still be on Mars way before NASA because they have shown time and again that they know exactly how to follow a clear incremental path and avoid the blind alleys and dead ends that NASA seems to gravitate towards.