Musk provides update to his Boca Chica crew
The candidate landing zone on Mars for Starship
Elon Musk yesterday gave a 44-minute update on Starship/Superheavy to his team in Boca Chica, outlining what he now expects in the next two years as well as in the next two decades.
You can watch his presentation here. Musk began by once again describing his fundamental goal behind the company, to make the human race multi-planetary, for its own survival, and that Mars is at this time the best choice for doing so. He then provided some details about the on-going development of Starship/Superheavy:
- SpaceX will be ready to launch 4th test flight in early May
- There is an 80-90% chance they will attempt a tower landing of Superheavy, caught by its chopstick arms, by the end of this year
- Starship will require at least two precision ocean landings before they attempt a tower landing
- To provide tower redundancy for these test landings, by next year they will have 2 towers at Boca Chica, 2 at Cape Canaveral, with Cape Canaveral operational by next year
- In 2024 they hope to build 6 Superheavys and Starships for test flights
- By 2025 they plan to test full refueling of Starship in orbit
- The third iteration of Starship/Superheavy will be capable of placing 200 tons in orbit
- That third iteration will cost less to launch than Falcon 1, $2-3 million
- To make a base on Mars self-sufficient quickly, he anticipates sending large fleets of Starships every two years, everytime the flight window to Mars opens.
- The preferred landing sites will be in the low mid-latitudes, 30-40 degrees, with elevations two kilometers below the Martian “sea level”, to take advantage of a thick atmosphere.
- If all goes as planned, Musk expects SpaceX to establish a Mars colony in about two decades
That next-to-last bullet point fits perfectly with the region north of Amazonis Planitia, as shown on the map above, where SpaceX has requested numerous images from the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It is two kilometers below the “sea level” of Mars. It is at a latitude either on or close to 40 degrees north latitude. It is a region that orbital data says has lots of very near-surface ice. And it is flat, making those first landings relatively safe.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The candidate landing zone on Mars for Starship
Elon Musk yesterday gave a 44-minute update on Starship/Superheavy to his team in Boca Chica, outlining what he now expects in the next two years as well as in the next two decades.
You can watch his presentation here. Musk began by once again describing his fundamental goal behind the company, to make the human race multi-planetary, for its own survival, and that Mars is at this time the best choice for doing so. He then provided some details about the on-going development of Starship/Superheavy:
- SpaceX will be ready to launch 4th test flight in early May
- There is an 80-90% chance they will attempt a tower landing of Superheavy, caught by its chopstick arms, by the end of this year
- Starship will require at least two precision ocean landings before they attempt a tower landing
- To provide tower redundancy for these test landings, by next year they will have 2 towers at Boca Chica, 2 at Cape Canaveral, with Cape Canaveral operational by next year
- In 2024 they hope to build 6 Superheavys and Starships for test flights
- By 2025 they plan to test full refueling of Starship in orbit
- The third iteration of Starship/Superheavy will be capable of placing 200 tons in orbit
- That third iteration will cost less to launch than Falcon 1, $2-3 million
- To make a base on Mars self-sufficient quickly, he anticipates sending large fleets of Starships every two years, everytime the flight window to Mars opens.
- The preferred landing sites will be in the low mid-latitudes, 30-40 degrees, with elevations two kilometers below the Martian “sea level”, to take advantage of a thick atmosphere.
- If all goes as planned, Musk expects SpaceX to establish a Mars colony in about two decades
That next-to-last bullet point fits perfectly with the region north of Amazonis Planitia, as shown on the map above, where SpaceX has requested numerous images from the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It is two kilometers below the “sea level” of Mars. It is at a latitude either on or close to 40 degrees north latitude. It is a region that orbital data says has lots of very near-surface ice. And it is flat, making those first landings relatively safe.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
This is very exciting!
With NASA slow to do anything all my life, I never thought I would see the day when my sci-fi dreams would come true… Humans walking on Mars!
A guaranteed place in the history books for Elon Musk unparalleled since Christopher Columbus.
If SpaceX is going to try a booster catch potentially as early as flight 5, it is probably going to be done with a second Boca Chica launch tower incomplete or with erection barely started. I guess Elon is assuming he’d just as soon risk knocking down an unfinished tower than a finished one! He might be right, but NASA may not agree!
And not sure about the tank farm. Are the two towers going to share one or will SpaceX build another?
“Starship will require at least two precision ocean landings before they attempt a tower landing”
Bob, this does not agree with Musk’s specific statement that if the flight 4 spot landing is successful, they will attempt a tower landing on flight 5. I reviewed his remarks several times, but was not able to timestamp this specific time of the statement. It occurs roughly 1/3 of the way through the video, when he is holding forth on the preposterous nature of the Mechazilla landing.
I am sure they will use the somewhat proven F9 approach that requires a late course diversion to reach the target, allowing the booster to miss the landing spot if difficulties are detected. Of course, this booster is much bigger and the desired target is a lot closer to acres of priceless infrastructure!!
Ray Van Dune: I might have misheard, but what I thought he had said was that they would try a tower landing of Superheavy on flight #5, after one sucessful precision ocean landing, but Starship would require at least two.
Ah, the ambiguous system / second stage name strikes again… I assumed you meant Superheavy would try for a tower catch, after two water landings. Sorry.
He did also say later on that the “ship” would not be ready to try tower catch until next year, due to the need to first better demonstrate the accuracy of the re-entry to bellyflop transition. He averred that the bellyflop to upright transition was already demonstrated. Well, once!
I would like the media to explain and report on whether Starship can be controlled during reentry. That is the component of space flight which engineers have never even attempted – bringing something the shape of Starship from orbit back to Earth. What I heard from Elon is someone who wants to focus the public on the booster as the next milestone. But Starship is the true challenge, no? But I need the media to help me understand. What will be an outstanding reentry accomplishment on this next flight? Does SpaceX want to rotate the ship so the engines face the direction of reentry and then light the engines to slow the ship? Or just keep the ship steady as the heat tiles dissipate energy for an extended period of time?
I understand Starship as is can do 50 tons…less than FH but more volume. Say what you will of SLS block 1, but if burned to depletion it and 70 tons of payload could both do orbit.
SLS still has the record of heaviest single, non-assembled object in space:
https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/spacex-general-discussion.13774/page-175#post-663172
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=57T_Za12SiM
Saturn V still has its 130-140 ton payload record.
I want wet workshops:
https://www.thespaceshow.com/show/14-dec-2021/broadcast-3801-gene-meyers
My understanding is that Starship will initially do a retrograde burn with engines firing in reverse to begin to lower the perigee of the orbit, but just like the Shuttle, this occurs in orbit, not during atmospheric reentry.
Like the Shuttle, Starship then reorients itself into a very nose-high forward facing attitude, designed to use atmospheric drag to slow down during reentry.
This is where differences begin to emerge. The Shuttle had much more wing area, and aircraft-like control surfaces, and could alter its course to control direction and angle of attack (nose up-down position) to select the point at which it would enter the thick portion of the atmosphere and become a glider.
Starship can also control this, but to a lesser degree, due to the fact that it has much smaller “wings” that develop less lift and are not arranged to control reentry flight path to nearly the same amount.
The shape and control surfaces of both ships have one overarching function, and that is to keep the heat shield facing into the hypersonic blast of going through the uppermost part of the atmosphere. If they fail to do that, the craft will be destroyed.
Once down in the atmosphere proper, the Shuttle flew like a (rather poor) glider to a normal but steep runway landing. But here the Starship becomes more or less a brick, dropping straight down belly first, using the fins like a skydiver uses arms and legs, to keep things right side up and to slow the descent somewhat. At the last moment using fins and rocket thrust, it stands on end and lands “standing up”!
So the Shuttle and Starship have rudimentary similarities during the hot part of reentry, but are completely different animals once they get into the atmosphere. The Shuttle has much greater control over its landing spot, but of course cannot land vertically like the Starship!
Steve Richter,
The media has a few available videos. Here is one by The Space Race YouTube channel for Starship landing on Mars. Landing on Earth is somewhat similar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUK0KIZAa9E (17 minutes, “How SpaceX Will Land On Mars”)
Most of the control is done by the fins, similar to most of the control for the Space Shuttle. The Space Shuttle’s wings provided far too much lift, as it was intended to land back at Vandenberg after a first orbit, in the case that it needed to make such a rapid return maneuver. Thus, it needed enough lift to make a turn that would take it about 1,500 miles to the east during reentry and before landing. During standard reentry, it had so much excess lift that it made a turn in one direction (left), then made a turn in the opposite direction, so it didn’t reenter upright but in a hard bank, otherwise it would have lifted itself back into space.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jb4prVsXkZU (17 minutes)
The requirement for Starship is not as difficult, so the lift is somewhat less, but as Ray Van Dune pointed out, it uses its heat shield in a higher angle of attack. The problem with flight 3 was that it began reentry in a very wrong attitude, and the fins were not large enough or strong enough to overcome the problem and get the ship under control. While in space, attitude is controlled by reaction thrusters, but these thrusters seem to have failed during the third Starship flight.
The final landing is performed by the fins and the engines, supplied by “header” tanks that are reserved just for this maneuver, so they are too full to slosh much, providing propellants to the engines for the flip and landing.
Everyday Astronaut, Tim Dodd:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqJ5bKuApbs (46 minutes; Why bellyflop?)
Bob:
You missed the bits about Raptor 3 which I thought were significant too. This version is apparently now looking to have 280 tons of thrust vs. the preliminary mention of 269 tons Elon shared a year ago, is expected to weigh less than Raptor 2, and is intended to eliminate the need for heat shielding on the booster which will further reduce the booster’s mass.
These are absolutely stunning metrics compared to anything that has ever been built before, and with the intent and expectation to support repeated, rapid, and sustainable re-use!!! The entire Starship/Superheavy program is impressive, but Raptor is where SpaceX has really separated themselves from everyone else imho.
And on top of this Elon casually throws out thevexpectation that “Ultimately we aim to get the booster engines to about 330 tons of thrust” which will give Superheavy an aggregate of nearly 11,000 tons (24M lbs) of thrust!!!! Wow!