21

SpaceX Starship Program / Re: What Needs to Be Done to Starship Before Uncrewed Mars EDL Tests Begin?

« Last post by Asteroza on Today at 05:16 am »

Maybe a pathfinder low cargo mass EDL ship that can arrive earlier than the main fleet for an EDL campaign, to better characterize the atmosphere behavior of starship? Assuming you could get one there a few days prior to the fleet, assume you can crunch the data and get useful results for tweaking the fleet before arrival.

The real fear is a pathfinder or two go in hot early in the window ahead of the fleet and fail EDL. Are you left with aerocapturing the fleet until you can crunch the data and attempt EDL later, or based on the data showing the fleet is ill prepared, sideline it to landing on Deimos/Phobos and offloading some Optimus there?


I would argue developing independent cargo EDL capsules that fit in Starship to allow diversity in EDL might be worth the trouble for early stage stuff.

Perhaps a more survivable cargo capsule that can survive light lithobraking to haul in a minimum of an Optimus, it's recharge solar panels, a shovel, and a rollable lens for solar sintering bricks, so a primitive landing pad could be constructed?

22

Mars Rovers and Spacecraft / Re: NASA/ESA - Mars Sample Return mission

« Last post by MickQ on Today at 05:16 am »

A truck delivers or fetches something. This is the purpose of MSR. So a truck.

A camera tripod has legs, this is to stand on, so an elephant.

Brilliant. It would have to be a disabled elephant.
So by your same analogy, what is MSR?

You guys have been here way too long 😞

23

Suborbital Missions / Re: The suborbital thread!

« Last post by russianhalo117 on Today at 05:09 am »

Launch Day 1, Campaign Night 2.
NASA AWSOME Campaign UAF PFRR Launch Complex pad assignments are going to be 46.034 on pad 1, 46.035 on pad 2, and 52.010 on pad 4. Daily Science Launch Window starts at 23:15LT. 46 salvo current NET of 01:00LT and 52 current NET of 03:40LT

24

SpaceX Falcon Missions Section / Re: SpaceX F9/Crew Dragon : Fram2 : KSC LC-39A : March 31/April 1 2025 (03:20 UTC)

« Last post by ddspaceman on Today at 04:56 am »

Chun
@satofishi
L-7 days

Only one week until launch. People ask me, “Are you excited?”

No, not at all. I slept through the entire weekend.

If there was ever a moment when I truly felt excited, it might have been in May 2023, when I was in Miami, first presenting Fram2 to SpaceX, and by chance heard someone singing Fly Me to the Moon in the lobby of the Ritz-Carlton, South Beach. That was the moment I truly felt: it might actually work out this time, and I might actually get to fly to space.

Now, everything needs to be done has been done. From here on, it’s just following the procedures. Excited doesn’t belong to me anymore.

Since childhood, I’ve known what the first cosmic velocity is, what weightlessness is like — at least in theory. What comes next is simple: don’t trust. verify.

After reassessing the weather patterns in the Pacific recovery zones, we’ve made a slight adjustment to the launch schedule. A new launch window has been added, making the NET time at 21:47 EDT. There will be four launch opportunities that night.

Tomorrow, we’ll fly to Florida, where we’ll begin our quarantine life.

https://twitter.com/satofishi/status/1904411106791285145

25

ISS Section / Re: Expedition 72 thread

« Last post by ddspaceman on Today at 04:45 am »

Don Pettit
@astro_Pettit
Athens, Greece as from @Space_Station.  The birthplace of democracy.

https://twitter.com/astro_Pettit/status/1904408509610885474

26

SpaceX Starship Program / Re: What Needs to Be Done to Starship Before Uncrewed Mars EDL Tests Begin?

« Last post by Navier–Stokes on Today at 04:43 am »

Is this work reasonable in 18 months?

I'm sorry to say it but, given the context of the statement, 18 months sounds like more political posturing rather than a real goal. As demonstrated by the last two missions, Starship is still far away from its final form. I would be surprised if they achieve rapid reusability of the upper stage in 18 months. There are going to be a lot of lessons to be learned from the first recovered stages.

27

Commercial Space Flight General / Re: Isar Spectrum - Demo launch #1 - Andøya - NET 26 March 2025 (11:30-14:30 UTC)

« Last post by arobert on Today at 04:22 am »

Yep, it's blowing a wet blizzard in the area now. Tomorrow the wind will let up for the afternoon, and though it will still be snowing or raining it will be as good a time as any to go until closer to the end of the current campaign. Sunday, the last day looks the best right now.

28

SpaceX Starship Program / Re: What Needs to Be Done to Starship Before Uncrewed Mars EDL Tests Begin?

« Last post by Coastal Ron on Today at 04:11 am »

If the uncrewed Mars EDL flight is a pathfinder for eventual crewed flights, I would think they would want to install some version of a life support system (ECLSS) for testing. NASA is working on this too (with plenty of experience with the ISS), so could be a combined test with SpaceX using one or both of their versions of ECLSS. I would imagine they would have enough room...

29

SpaceX Falcon Missions Section / Re: SpaceX F9/Dragon 2 : CRS2 SpX-32 : KSC LC-39A : 21 April 2025 (~08:00 UTC)

« Last post by GewoonLukas_ on Today at 04:01 am »

Ben Cooper (updated March 24th):

A Falcon 9 will launch the CRS-32 resupply mission to the ISS from pad 39A on April 21 at 4:15 a.m. EDT.

https://www.launchphotography.com/Launch_Viewing_Guide.html

30

SpaceX Starship Program / What Needs to Be Done to Starship Before Uncrewed Mars EDL Tests Begin?

« Last post by TheRadicalModerate on Today at 04:01 am »

We have lots of threads about Starship and Mars, but we don't seem to have one about what's needed before uncrewed Mars transit and EDL tests can occur.  Musk has said he believes this can be done in 18 months, when the next synodic window opens.

This is not a thread looking for predictions about whether such a test would be successful.  Instead, what are the minimum development milestones required to even attempt an EDL test?

My list:

1) Refueling obviously has to work, well enough that a depot can get the test Starship to carry at least 400t of prop from VLEO.

2) Header tanks for Mars are much larger, and are going to make the balance situation kinda strange.¹  SpaceX could choose not to test landing and let the Starship bellyflop into the ground, removing the nose headers and replacing them with ballast.

3) Reliable Raptor restarts after extended cold-soak.  (This is really only necessary if they plan an actual landing.  Otherwise, the Starship can do EDL dead-stick with only some attitude control.

4) Solar power on a Starship.

5) Deep space comms and nav support.

6) See here for discussion about how to gather telemetry from Starships doing EDL at Mars.  I think something like this is probably necessary to make a test worth doing.  The Seven Minutes of Terror-style tones probably aren't going to do it.

7) If landing is attempted, Starship needs Mars-sized landing legs, and probably waist-mounted landing thrusters (roughly twice as many as on HLS Starship).

8 ) Block 2 OK, or do they have to go to Block 3?

I'm sure there are a zillion other things.  What am I missing?  Is this work reasonable in 18 months?

___________
¹I wonder if we'll see the return of an LCH4 header in the main tank.  I get about 750m/s of delta-v for landing on Mars, due to the much higher terminal speed.  With no payload, that would be about 36t of prop, of which 28t would be LOX.  At boiling density, that would be about 25m³.  If you model the LOX header as a cone with a ~60º nose, that consumes the top 10m of the nose. 

That sounds kind of big, even for the LOX header alone.