NASA Mars mission Conops using Starship, derivatives and other hardware

[Zed_Noir]

Should we expect Starship propulsive landing accuracy to be poor? F9 booster has very high landing accuracy now. Does that depend on GPS?

The F9 aims for a predetermined GPS spot and lands there, and expects either the drone ship or the landing pad to be at the same location.

No reason to suspect the Earth based landings won’t be the same (if it works then leave it the heck alone). For mars who knows?  I suspect it won’t be able to do the Perseverance trick of using cameras in the final landing phase as it can’t hover/slow down and pick a spot.

There might some sort of GPS navigation/communication system deployed by SpaceX with some sort of SmallSats before Starships landing on Mars.


SpaceX could also eject a few optical observation platforms with parachutes to visualized the landing terrain after entry and descend at Mars with Starships.

[whitelancer64]

Should we expect Starship propulsive landing accuracy to be poor? F9 booster has very high landing accuracy now. Does that depend on GPS?

The F9 aims for a predetermined GPS spot and lands there, and expects either the drone ship or the landing pad to be at the same location.

No reason to suspect the Earth based landings won’t be the same (if it works then leave it the heck alone). For mars who knows?  I suspect it won’t be able to do the Perseverance trick of using cameras in the final landing phase as it can’t hover/slow down and pick a spot.

Starship should be able to hover during the terminal landing phase. Especially when loaded with up to 100 tons of cargo. It won't be able to do so for very long, though.

Terrain Relative Navigation for descent is perfectly feasible, with hazard avoidance during final landing. That will probably be sufficient accuracy for the initial test landings, and possibly also for the first cargo landings.

A basic GPS system for Mars would make a lot of things much easier, both for landing and surface operations. Ideally they could also function as Mars to Earth communications relay satellites. That will be one of the first things a human mission to Mars would set up, or it could be deployed shortly before humans arrive.

[whitelancer64]

This brief paper (two pages) from the 52nd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference 2021 is entitled "SpaceX Starship Landing Sites on Mars" and mentions the use of Terrain Relative Navigation for Starship to achieve a landing ellipse of less than 200 m diameter.

[Joseph Peterson]

I have a detailed response for a SpaceX led civilization building plan which allows NASA astronauts to tag along for the ride.  The OP states we should be talking about a Congress sponsored NASA led program to send the first humans to Mars though.  Before I could start to craft a topical response I need to know what Congress' motivations are.  I am currently at a loss for any plausible reasons why Congress might abandon the status quo of Mars-in-seventeen-years anytime soon.

[DistantTemple]

I have a detailed response for a SpaceX led civilization building plan which allows NASA astronauts to tag along for the ride.  The OP states we should be talking about a Congress sponsored NASA led program to send the first humans to Mars though.  Before I could start to craft a topical response I need to know what Congress' motivations are.  I am currently at a loss for any plausible reasons why Congress might abandon the status quo of Mars-in-seventeen-years anytime soon.

Unless SpaceX is (deliberately) blocked, it looks like they could land tests, cargo, and humans on their own dime, in under half of that 17 years! Therefore their status quo will become moot.
If Congress wants to remain at all relevant, they have no choice but accept it. They can still choose to have minimal involvement, and allow it to be a commercial endeavor, or conversely they can try to make it appear that its a flagship NASA mission with a high percentage of commercial involvement - which there has always been.
There are enough very elderly senators and administrators that can retire, and allow in a new openness, in a couple of years just as policy openly accepts "facts on the ground" (or in space). That's my prediction. "Our commercial crew program and commercial lunar lander has been an outstanding success, allowing us to bring forward previous projections..." "NASA will, in collaboration with commercial partners..."

[Slarty1080]

I have a detailed response for a SpaceX led civilization building plan which allows NASA astronauts to tag along for the ride.  The OP states we should be talking about a Congress sponsored NASA led program to send the first humans to Mars though.  Before I could start to craft a topical response I need to know what Congress' motivations are.  I am currently at a loss for any plausible reasons why Congress might abandon the status quo of Mars-in-seventeen-years anytime soon.

I have found the discussion on this thread so far to be quite different to what I expected and very thought provoking. I assumed that Elon Musk's usual overly optimistic gung ho approach would be late but would produce a ship capable of putting the first humans on Mars. And that when the means became available to put boots on Mars at a reasonable price that Congress would be up for it.

Perhaps I was wrong, I'm no longer sure. I don't live in the US and only have a rudimentary knowledge of the US political dynamics and this would appear to be vital in understanding what may happen to any future Mars program. I would have thought SpaceX would be very keen on having NASA and Congress on side for contractual cash, technical expertise and political cover for planetary protection and nuclear power options etc.

But if Congress go cold turkey on the whole thing and leave it entirely to SpaceX that changes things a lot. If NASA is not allowed to be involved in the human Mars program then IMO at best it will tarnish NASA's image as a driver for innovation and at worst make it look rather pathetic and irrelevant. And that would not be the end of it.

SpaceX could easily be sucked into all manner of political quagmires by angry critters. I could see a very nasty political position emerging over the next 5 years with NASA painted as the champion of robotic exploration, remote sensing and very limited human involvement, whilst SpaceX was painted as a billionaires reckless play thing that was contaminating and despoiling the Solar System and pumping vast quantities of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere for no good reason. *important note* - I do not believe this at all, I am merely suggesting that it's exactly the sort of nonsense that would be all too easy to fan into a fire storm of protest for political reasons. Current trends towards irrationality, polarisation and fake news would not help either.

[Slarty1080]

I have a detailed response for a SpaceX led civilization building plan which allows NASA astronauts to tag along for the ride.  The OP states we should be talking about a Congress sponsored NASA led program to send the first humans to Mars though.  Before I could start to craft a topical response I need to know what Congress' motivations are.  I am currently at a loss for any plausible reasons why Congress might abandon the status quo of Mars-in-seventeen-years anytime soon.

Unless SpaceX is (deliberately) blocked, it looks like they could land tests, cargo, and humans on their own dime, in under half of that 17 years! Therefore their status quo will become moot.
If Congress wants to remain at all relevant, they have no choice but accept it. They can still choose to have minimal involvement, and allow it to be a commercial endeavor, or conversely they can try to make it appear that its a flagship NASA mission with a high percentage of commercial involvement - which there has always been.
There are enough very elderly senators and administrators that can retire, and allow in a new openness, in a couple of years just as policy openly accepts "facts on the ground" (or in space). That's my prediction. "Our commercial crew program and commercial lunar lander has been an outstanding success, allowing us to bring forward previous projections..." "NASA will, in collaboration with commercial partners..."

I very much hope that you are correct and the concerns from my previous post turn out to be unfounded. That is, no deliberate blocking via planetary protection or peculiarly targeted environmental legislation or other dirty tricks. Either lets agree to the human exploration of Mars lead by NASA or agree to let other organisations do so with good grace.

[DigitalMan]

This brief paper (two pages) from the 52nd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference 2021 is entitled "SpaceX Starship Landing Sites on Mars" and mentions the use of Terrain Relative Navigation for Starship to achieve a landing ellipse of less than 200 m diameter.

There is also this paper that Eric Ralph wrote about in a Teslarati article:

http://surveygizmoresponseuploads.s3.amazonaws.com/fileuploads/623127/5489366/111-381503be1c5764e533d2e1e923e21477_HeldmannJenniferL.pdf

I don't think it's recent, but there are a number of folks listed that potentially contributed ideas.

[su27k]

I have a detailed response for a SpaceX led civilization building plan which allows NASA astronauts to tag along for the ride.  The OP states we should be talking about a Congress sponsored NASA led program to send the first humans to Mars though.  Before I could start to craft a topical response I need to know what Congress' motivations are.  I am currently at a loss for any plausible reasons why Congress might abandon the status quo of Mars-in-seventeen-years anytime soon.

The same reasons they abandoned the status quo of Return-to-the-Moon-in-20-years.