Thread: SpaceX - On to Mars

The launch pad looks surprisingly intact.

Originally Posted by Topper

The launch pad looks surprisingly intact.

The one thing that surprises me is that even the paint is not seriously damaged. I fully expected the pad to be OK with the massive upgrade.

^Cool pic. Reminds me of 1930’s Flash Gordon’s spaceship with better flames.

Originally Posted by misskit

^Cool pic. Reminds me of 1930’s Flash Gordon’s spaceship with better flames.

LOL, you're that old?

Oh, hell, no! I think Flash Gordon serial reruns went on until the ‘80s.

Originally Posted by misskit

Oh, hell, no! I think Flash Gordon serial reruns went on until the ‘80s.

Nice cover!

And literally posted within 4 minutes…

SpaceX has delivered their incident report to FAA. They are now waiting for a launch license, expected some time this month. So hopefully they can launch their third ship in February. Seems they believe, all of the problems that led to loss of the second launch, can be fixed with software updates. I am very optimistic that this coming or the next will be successful. SpaceX are not short on hardware.

A photo of the next 3 boosters, for the next flights. On the left and right the 2 parts of number 4, ready to be stacked.

All of this was built, while they were actually tearing down the large construction tents and building a huge factory building that will speed up construction a lot. It really looks like they are not short on money.

NASA is waiting for SpaceX to build their Human Landing System Starship for the Artemis 3 mission to deliver 2 astronauts for a crew mission to the lunar surface. NASA is not ready for the previously intended 2025 and has the landing now scheduled for September 2026, which gives SpaceX more time to get ready. NASA has delays on their Orion capsule and another contractor, Axiom Space, is also behind schedule for the contracted lunar spacesuit.

SpaceX will also have a hard time to meet the September 2026 date. That date is likely to slip into 2027, IMO, but not only in my opinion.

Want to see some NASA mission plan for Mars? That's their design for sending 4 astronauts to Mars orbit, no landing. I am not sure, if I have shown this earlier, so apologies if this is a repeat.

It would be for a flight in 2033, because that's a launch window with low energy requirements, limiting the number of launches needed.

There are 3 sets of commercial heavy lift rockets. They are generic and interchangeable. From left to right

SpaceX Falcon Heavy, operational and available for order
Blue Origin New Glenn, scheduled for maiden flight this year, 2024, optimistic. But should be available in time for the 2033 mission
ULA New Glenn, using the same main engine from Blue Origin as New Glenn, did have a successful maiden flight this month, January 2024

Very rough cost for the commercial launches $150 million each. Total cost ~$2 billion.
Can't estimate the cost for 13 boost stages, maybe $50-100 million each, they need to be developed. Total cost $1.3 billion

Then the orange rocket, SLS, cost ~3 billion each, without payload. Flight 4 with Orion as crew vehicle, Orion adds another 1 billion cost. Total $13 billion.

So maybe a total of

Cost in the range of $16 billion, mission development and development of the crew habitat not included. Probably wildly optimistic cost estimate, given that a mission to get a few kg of Mars surface samples back to Earth is right now expanding into the range of ~$10 billion.

There is no actual plan by Congress to finance this.

This mission profile and another mission profile have been discussed on NSF (NASA Spaceflight Forum), in case you are interested. Some very opinonated posts and a lot of info there.

Concept for crewed 2033 Mars orbital mission (Internal JPL study)

Impressive photo from the SpaceX HLS (Human landing ship) for lunar landing of NASA crew.

NASA announces that a successful test of the docking adapter has been done. With that adapter HLS Starship can dock to the Orion capsule carrying the crew or to the planned lunar orbit space station.


SpaceX and NASA recently performed full-scale qualification testing of the docking system that will connect SpaceX’s Starship Human Landing System (HLS) with Orion and later Gateway in lunar orbit during future crewed Artemis missions. Based on the flight-proven Dragon 2 active docking system, the Starship HLS docking system will be able to act as an active or passive system during docking.

NASA, SpaceX Test Starship Lunar Lander Docking System - NASA

As part of NASA’s Artemis campaign that will establish the foundation for long-term scientific exploration at the Moon, crew will need to move between different spacecraft to carry out lunar landings. NASA and SpaceX recently performed qualification testing for the docking system that will help make that possible.


For the Artemis III mission, astronauts will ride the Orion spacecraft from Earth to lunar orbit, and then once the two spacecraft are docked, move to the lander, the Starship Human Landing System (HLS) that will bring them to the surface. After surface activities are complete, Starship will return the astronauts to Orion waiting in lunar orbit. During later missions, astronauts will transfer from Orion to Starship via the Gateway lunar space station. Based on SpaceX’s flight-proven Dragon 2 docking system used on missions to the International Space Station, the Starship docking system can be configured to connect the lander to Orion or Gateway.


The docking system tests for Starship HLS were conducted at NASA’s Johnson Space Center over 10 days using a system that simulates contact dynamics between two spacecraft in orbit. The testing included more than 200 docking scenarios, with various approach angles and speeds. These real-world results using full-scale hardware will validate computer models of the Moon lander’s docking system.


This dynamic testing demonstrated that the Starship system could perform a “soft capture” while in the active docking role. When two spacecraft dock, one vehicle assumes an active “chaser” role while the other is in a passive “target” role. To perform a soft capture, the soft capture system (SCS) of the active docking system is extended while the passive system on the other spacecraft remains retracted. Latches and other mechanisms on the active docking system SCS attach to the passive system, allowing the two spacecraft to dock.


Since being selected as the lander to return humans to the surface of the Moon for the first time since Apollo, SpaceX has completed more than 30 HLS specific milestones by defining and testing hardware needed for power generation, communications, guidance and navigation, propulsion, life support, and space environments protection.


Under NASA’s Artemis campaign, the agency will land the first woman, first person of color, and its first international partner astronaut on the lunar surface, and prepare for human expeditions to Mars for the benefit of all. Commercial human landing systems are critical to deep space exploration, along with the Space Launch System rocket, Orion spacecraft, advanced spacesuits and rovers, exploration ground systems, and the Gateway space station.

But a Blue Origin fan recently told me that BO is more advanced in their HLS development than SpaceX. They already have built a full scale cardboard mockup of their lander. SpaceX has not done that. They only build actual working components of their HLS Starship.

I forgot to mention one major new capability of this docking port. For 2 ports to dock, one needs to be active and one passive. The basic design allows for one port to be active or passive as needed. But so far all ports built are only capable of being active, other ports only being passive. This Starship port is the first ever, that actually implements the capability to do both. That is needed so Starship can dock to Orion or to the planned lunar orbit space station.

BTW this active/passive is new terminology. They used to use androgynous, male, female in some bygone era.

2 photos of the latest Starship stacking. Hope that SpaceX will get the launch license soon.



A view of the engine bay from below. Always a special treat. It shows the sea level and the vacuum engines. Falcon 9 Merlin has sea level and vac engines too, but they are quite different in design. For the Starship Raptor engine they succeeded in keeping the 2 types almost fully the same, except for the large nozzle. New version of Starship will have 9 engines, instead of the present 6. It will be 6 Raptor vac and 3 sea level engines.

They a doing a wet dress rehearsal with Starship right now. Which means both Booster and Starship are being filled with oxygen and methane. A huge amount, so the risk of explosion is high enough that they have evacuated Boca Chica village.



It is already almost full.

SpaceX got the launch license for a Starship launch today. Launch window begins 5 hours from now. Weather at the ground is go. High altitude shear winds might be a problem, we don't know what the exact abort criteria for this are.

There are live streams

NSF live stream, already running with kind of commentary.


Everyday Astronaut live stream, already running, no commenary yet, will begin 2 hours ahead of launch window.


SpaceX live stream, beginning 30 minutes before launch window, on twitter.
https://twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1LyxBnOvzvOxN

SpaceX expects Starship to reach orbit this time. Intend to do propellant transfer between tanks inside Starship. Intend to test deployment mechanism for Starlink sats, the PEZ dispenser.

NASA will send a plane to observe the flight. They are very interested, because Starship is their Artemis Moon lander.

Tests of mega-space rocket from SpaceX go wrong for the third time




OF
Karen Nielsen




The third time was not a happy one for "Starship", which is a new giant rocket developed by Elon Musk's space company SpaceX for lunar and Mars travel.

Today's test launch from the US state of Texas went better than the two previous test launches, both of which ended with the rocket exploding shortly after launch, writes the news agency Reuters.

But when the "Starship" was supposed to return to Earth, the rocket did not cope with the encounter with the atmosphere and was lost.

"Now we have to admit that we have lost the spaceship," Dan Huot of SpaceX told CNN's live blog about the test launch.

"There won't be any splashdown today, but it's just amazing to see how much further we got this time."

Giant SpaceX rocket blasts off in most successful test launch yet | Science & Tech News | Sky News

That's some shiz right there.

It's big enough that SpaceX says it "will be able to carry up to 100 people on long-duration, interplanetary flights".

Ya gotta give it to the man with the plan.

Originally Posted by helge

Tests of mega-space rocket from SpaceX go wrong for the third time

No surprise with the headline. False negative like so often.

It was a big success. The second flight had all problems of the first flight resolved.

The third flight has all problems of the second flight resolved. Both Booster and Ship performed new steps during their flights.

Not unsurprisingly some new problems to be solved popped up.

Failure to relight the Starship Raptor engine means, they will have to make the next flight slightly off orbital again to make sure, it does not drop uncontrolled, potentially hazardous for people on the ground. It is speculated, probably true, that attitude control failed. So they could not refire the Raptor engine and hit the atmosphere wrong on the way down. Two problems, one root cause to fix.

The Booster flyback burn was good, a big step forward again. I have no idea yet, what went wrong with the landing burn. We will have to wait for analysis and info from SpaceX.

There will be another mishap investigation by FAA and SpaceX. Guess, the next flight may be in 3-4 months, instead of in one month, like I hoped.

There was some gorgeous video coverage of this flight, right until plasma forming at the flaps on reentry.

Originally Posted by Edmond

Giant SpaceX rocket blasts off in most successful test launch yet | Science & Tech News | Sky News

Good article. NASA admin Bill Nelson congratulated SpaceX for good reasons.

https://twitter.com/SenBillNelson/st...88689694642398

Congrats to @SpaceX on a successful test flight! Starship has soared into the heavens. Together, we are making great strides through Artemis to return humanity to the Moon—then look onward to Mars.

Scott Manley made a commented cut of the most important parts of the flight, with amazing live video from Starship.

It is 20 minutes well worth watching. Showing plasma heating during reentry.

Originally Posted by Takeovers

No surprise with the headline. False negative like so often.

It was a big success.

I can see your point, but how many tests do they need then ?

These must be the easy tests. I can imagine the headlines, when they crash the first landing module on ....Mars, was it?

"Oops, that didn't work, but...huge success.

We actually thought we would miss Mars altogether,

We'll try again. In 3 years !"

Use your calculaters, man, and hire some folks who know what they are doing.


No need to attack me for knowing fuck all. I'll admit that; I'm just a bit "solution minded".


Am I the only one who thinks: Emperor's New Clothes

Originally Posted by helge

I can see your point, but how many tests do they need then ?

SpaceX can afford more tests. So far, none of the failures of the previous flight happened again. They were analyzed and mitigated successfully. These rockets are dirt cheap compared with BOEING/NASA SLS. A full stack as destroyed yesterday is below $100 million, that's less than a single engine of SLS, which has 4 main engines. In total one SLS costs more than $3 billion, without Orion. So one SLS costs more than 30 Starships. But it is even worse. The first SLS launched 2023. The second SLS is presently scheduled to fly September 2025, but nobody seriously believes they can make that date.

SpaceX has 3 Starship stacks almost ready to go. More in production after they increased capacity of their Boca Chica factory. They began testing Ship and Booster before yesterdays launch. Of course they need to evaluate the failures and do modifications which will take time. But the biggest delaying factor is that each time FAA demands a mishap investigation. Hope is that Spacex will be ready for the next launch some time April 2024. But we don't know, how much time the fixes will take and how much delay the FAA investigation will cause.

The big unexpected problem that hit Starship this time was failure of the attitude control thrusters. Both Starship and Booster were tumbling when they failed. This system was not really needed in flight 1 and 2. So it was found only now. Try, fail, upgrade, repeat is the method SpaceX uses. Remember the video they released, "How not to land an orbital rocket booster".



By now they have landed over 200 consecutive boosters without failure.

Originally Posted by helge

These must be the easy tests. I can imagine the headlines, when they crash the first landing module on ....Mars, was it?

They may lose a Starship or 2 on Mars. But by then they have Starship well reliable with many landings on Earth. Surprisingly the reentry conditions on Earth and Mars are actually quite similar. On both planets most of the speed is braked in similar atmospheric conditions. Mars is more difficult but by then they know Starship very well. They know atmospheric conditions on Mars from NASA experience. I would not be very surprised, if they make it on Mars on first try.

BTW, the next big challenge is landing Starship on the Moon for the NASA Artemis program. Starship is what will land Astronauts on the Moon, with NASA/Boeing SLS will bring them to Moon orbit. Target date is September 2026, but again, that date is very likely to slip. Just as likely due to NASA as due to SpaceX.

Thanks for your time and answer.