Author Topic: SpaceX Falcon Heavy - Red Dragon to Mars - 2018  (Read 496047 times)

Offline Dalhousie

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Re: SpaceX Falcon Heavy - Red Dragon to Mars - 2018
« Reply #680 on: 05/07/2016 09:33 pm »
And THIS is what boggles my mind.. we are talking about a mission to Mars that will certainly do some useful science for a realistic cost less than $60-80M. That's chump change, it's only an order of magnitude more than a well run Kickstarter can raise.

Unless SpaceX allows substantial NASA modifications so that it can carry a drill or return samples collected by 2020 how much science will it do?

And I don''t think it will be that cheap, despite wishful thinking by the SpaceX fan club.
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Offline clongton

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Re: SpaceX Falcon Heavy - Red Dragon to Mars - 2018
« Reply #681 on: 05/07/2016 10:18 pm »
I don't believe there will be much science on this first RD. This is a test flight to dial in the EDL procedures. Remember, even though NASA will be coaching, SpaceX has never done anything like this before. So while there will probably be some scientific instrumentation onboard, the purpose is to land intact in the targeted location. That will be mission accomplished. Anything beyond that is a bonus.
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Offline spacenut

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Re: SpaceX Falcon Heavy - Red Dragon to Mars - 2018
« Reply #682 on: 05/08/2016 02:10 am »
Does anyone think the Raptor upper stage engine and hopefully an upper stage would be ready by 2018?  This would greatly improve performance.


Offline Robotbeat

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Re: SpaceX Falcon Heavy - Red Dragon to Mars - 2018
« Reply #683 on: 05/08/2016 02:17 am »
Does anyone think the Raptor upper stage engine and hopefully an upper stage would be ready by 2018?  This would greatly improve performance.
It's possible, and I've speculated on the possibility in the past, but I highly doubt it'd be used for the 2018 RD launch.
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Offline The Amazing Catstronaut

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Re: SpaceX Falcon Heavy - Red Dragon to Mars - 2018
« Reply #684 on: 05/08/2016 02:50 am »


And I don''t think it will be that cheap, despite wishful thinking by the SpaceX fan club.

Why? Rebuking the SpaceX fans isn't always moderated and reasonable if it isn't justified.

Falcon heavy is extremely cheap. Usually, every kilogram landed on Mars is a million dollars. A million per kilogram, just think about that.

Dragon massively reduces that, even from superficial analysis that's easy to realise - and the deeper you go the more justified the excitement becomes. This is a Mars mission for the price of a comnsat launch.
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Offline meekGee

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Re: SpaceX Falcon Heavy - Red Dragon to Mars - 2018
« Reply #685 on: 05/08/2016 04:58 am »


And I don''t think it will be that cheap, despite wishful thinking by the SpaceX fan club.

Why? Rebuking the SpaceX fans isn't always moderated and reasonable if it isn't justified.

Falcon heavy is extremely cheap. Usually, every kilogram landed on Mars is a million dollars. A million per kilogram, just think about that.

Dragon massively reduces that, even from superficial analysis that's easy to realise - and the deeper you go the more justified the excitement becomes. This is a Mars mission for the price of a comnsat launch.

Also don't forget that Dragon to Mars will be a large number of Dragons.  There's plenty to do on and around Mars before MCTs can go or even designed....   So development costs for Mars Dragon will be split among many vehicles, and per-mission costs will be lower.  Same can be said about their Mars mission control. 

And yes, I know I'm speaking beyond the very first Dragon to go in 2018, but I doubt anyone's thinking that there'll only be this one flight.
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Offline JamesH65

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Re: SpaceX Falcon Heavy - Red Dragon to Mars - 2018
« Reply #686 on: 05/08/2016 06:34 am »
Does anyone think the Raptor upper stage engine and hopefully an upper stage would be ready by 2018?  This would greatly improve performance.

I've been reading lots of threads on here, but I haven't seen any confirmation that SpaceX are going to develop a Rapter U/S. Any links I have missed?

Offline MP99

Re: SpaceX Falcon Heavy - Red Dragon to Mars - 2018
« Reply #687 on: 05/08/2016 07:46 am »


But the way I see it, these Mars missions is a much about tech development programs (We want to build a new and bigger rover) as science, so why would NASA/JPL standardize? They would loose tech development part (No new rover or skycrane).

Red Dragon could end up being a catalyst for moving away from one off multibillion developments for each mission and towards a more standardized regime with more opportunities to launch. So you would get more science for the same amount of money, but less high tech development within NASA.

Why not have the best of the two combined? Launch on a standardized platform in each window with 5 crafts, and for the next window iterate on the platform based on the feedback of the previous sorties (like Falcon is now continuously enhanced based on previous experience). So let's say we have $2.5B for each window. Spend $1B on launch+delivery services (including EDL and basic services on the ground like solar electricity), and $1.5B on science. SpaceX would improve the delivery system on its own from the $1B, and NASA could do R&D, etc. from the $1.5B. If they have a multi-window contract set up this way then each party can very optimally use the resources to make the thing cost effective.

There isn't a lander for every window, so a fraction of $2.5b per window.

I think the cost savings in the short term are being overestimated. RD just adds EDL on top of the launch that previous landers have benefited from.

I don't think, for instance that there would be sufficient budget to send a fully featured rover at every window. It would take a while to develop a commodity rover (eg spirit / opportunity size), and instruments would probably be unique for each mission.

And that assumes NASA is prepared to abandon flagship landers.

Seems very expensive for university projects.

I'd suspect RD will be used heavily for SpaceX's own testing on later missions, with third party rovers a minor addition.

Cheers, Martin

Offline mlindner

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Re: SpaceX Falcon Heavy - Red Dragon to Mars - 2018
« Reply #688 on: 05/08/2016 08:25 am »
Payload should include some form of deployable solar arrays - and the means to clean them of the dust. If there were circular sets it might be as simple as a rotating wand/brush . That and a camera and possibly a scooper arm to dig down a bit might be enough for flight 1. A good telescope to show Earth and Moon from Mars would be cool too.

A lot of people seem to be overestimating how much Red Dragon is going to do. Red Dragon will be a stripped down Dragon 2 with lots of sensors, some interplanetary comms and no scientific payload. It will not deploy a rover. It will not have solar panels (other than what's on the trunk). It will be battery powered and take a few photos. The main purpose of the mission is to get data return on EDL techniques that will input into the design of MCT. Two years is not enough time to design build and test anything fancy.
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Offline mlindner

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Re: SpaceX Falcon Heavy - Red Dragon to Mars - 2018
« Reply #689 on: 05/08/2016 08:26 am »
... we know that the 5.5 on F9 is ASDS recovery at $62M.


We don't know that. The values on that page, until shown otherwise, are full RTLS. Not ASDS.
LEO is the ocean, not an island (let alone a continent). We create cruise liners to ride the oceans, not artificial islands in the middle of them. We need a physical place, which has physical resources, to make our future out there.

Offline Hotblack Desiato

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Re: SpaceX Falcon Heavy - Red Dragon to Mars - 2018
« Reply #690 on: 05/08/2016 09:38 am »
So, I've read a lot here in this thread about the possibilities from a technical and scientific point of view are.

But what is SpaceX going to achieve with Red Dragon. A technology demonstrator is fine, and learning about interplanetary flight is crucial for their endeavour. Yet, SX is known for targeting a variety of different goals with the same project. So if their project is "build a martian colony in a very short time frame", the only goal can be: land somewhere on Mars, and check the landing site whether it is suitable for such a colony or not.

So, they need to identify the paramenters that turn a landing site into a good site for a colony, they need the proper instrumentation, and so on.

At this point, NASA already did a lot of work (for them) by identifying sites that could be interesting for the 2020 rover and a possible manned landing site (identify geological features from orbit, that offer a lot of possibilities for scientific research aswell as ISRU). I could imagine, that NASA and dozens of universities would be happy to send their instruments to Mars, either for free or for a really low amount of money.

Then there are two possible results: the site is useful, or the site isn't useful (and many shades in between).

If useful, then they can send something else with further Red Dragons, mostly goods like food, spare parts, ISRU-machines, habitats, as long as it fits inside a dragon capsule.

If not useful, then they have to repeat the mission somewhere else.

One particular interesting experiment could be: A chamber with bacteria commonly found on and in humans, and then add martian soil to it. The system needs to be hermetically sealed and needs an abort button that sanitizes the whole chamber (for example by adding hydrochloric acid at 2 mol/l). If the bacteria don't survive the contact with the martian soil, there is a good chance, that planetary protection is not a real issue, because our bacteria just can't survive there without protecton.

Another microbiological experiment could search for evidence that either life is present on Mars (not likely) or that the contamination of Mars happened a long time ago. Could be interesting, and the systems wouldn't be that large.

Offline cscott

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Re: SpaceX Falcon Heavy - Red Dragon to Mars - 2018
« Reply #691 on: 05/08/2016 01:07 pm »
Does anyone think the Raptor upper stage engine and hopefully an upper stage would be ready by 2018?  This would greatly improve performance.

I've been reading lots of threads on here, but I haven't seen any confirmation that SpaceX are going to develop a Rapter U/S. Any links I have missed?
It is mentioned offhand in the contract SpaceX got from USAF: https://spaceflightnow.com/2016/01/14/orbital-atk-spacex-nab-u-s-air-force-propulsion-contracts/

Offline spacenut

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Re: SpaceX Falcon Heavy - Red Dragon to Mars - 2018
« Reply #692 on: 05/08/2016 01:21 pm »
JamesH65

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=39314.0

Link to Raptor upper stage.  The Air Force gave SpaceX several million dollars to help develop a Raptor upper stage engine.  It was figured that a 5.2m diameter upper stage, the same length as the existing upper stage, with a Raptor Metholox engine would greatly improve payloads and throw weight for deep space probes or GSO orbits for larger satellites. 

It seems the Air Force wants more and complete competition with ULA for large satellites.  Some of their larger ones have no competition until FH gets on line.  SpaceX is or was already about 2 years in on Raptor development.  This would help finish it's development. 
« Last Edit: 05/08/2016 01:24 pm by spacenut »

Offline Jim

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Re: SpaceX Falcon Heavy - Red Dragon to Mars - 2018
« Reply #693 on: 05/08/2016 01:29 pm »
JamesH65

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=39314.0

Link to Raptor upper stage.  The Air Force gave SpaceX several million dollars to help develop a Raptor upper stage engine.  It was figured that a 5.2m diameter upper stage, the same length as the existing upper stage, with a Raptor Metholox engine would greatly improve payloads and throw weight for deep space probes or GSO orbits for larger satellites. 

It seems the Air Force wants more and complete competition with ULA for large satellites.  Some of their larger ones have no competition until FH gets on line.  SpaceX is or was already about 2 years in on Raptor development.  This would help finish it's development. 


Still not going to happen for awhile and certainly not on any FH in two years.  Especially since FH will have only flown a few times.  This is many years away, even in Spacex time.

Also, I believe that money was taken away by congress.
« Last Edit: 05/08/2016 01:31 pm by Jim »

Offline Jim

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Re: SpaceX Falcon Heavy - Red Dragon to Mars - 2018
« Reply #694 on: 05/08/2016 01:32 pm »
Does anyone think the Raptor upper stage engine and hopefully an upper stage would be ready by 2018?  This would greatly improve performance.

There is no need to improve performance at this time.

Offline nadreck

Re: SpaceX Falcon Heavy - Red Dragon to Mars - 2018
« Reply #695 on: 05/08/2016 02:43 pm »
... we know that the 5.5 on F9 is ASDS recovery at $62M.


We don't know that. The values on that page, until shown otherwise, are full RTLS. Not ASDS.

The page does not say that anywhere. The math suggests that the $90M FH is RTLS for all cores (see http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=39181.msg1521480#msg1521480 and http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=34077.msg1500227#msg1500227). Finally, we know from recent experience that 5t is just barely ASDSable and uses up all the margin.

It is all well and good to quote those things that made it past your confirmation bias that other people wrote, but this is a discussion board damnit! Let us know what you think! And why!

Offline launchwatcher

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Re: SpaceX Falcon Heavy - Red Dragon to Mars - 2018
« Reply #696 on: 05/08/2016 03:16 pm »
Still not going to happen for awhile and certainly not on any FH in two years.  Especially since FH will have only flown a few times.  This is many years away, even in Spacex time.

Also, I believe that money was taken away by congress.

Latest I can find is that the current draft bill passed out of committee limits AF spending from this particular pot of money to 75% on main stage engines, 25% on everything else:

http://spacenews.com/the-rd-180-amendment-was-one-of-two-launch-related-provisions-that-made-it-into-the-national-defense-authorization-act-of-2017-by-the-time-the-committee-voted-60-to-2-to-send-the-bill-to-the-full/

Offline AncientU

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Re: SpaceX Falcon Heavy - Red Dragon to Mars - 2018
« Reply #697 on: 05/08/2016 04:05 pm »
Still not going to happen for awhile and certainly not on any FH in two years.  Especially since FH will have only flown a few times.  This is many years away, even in Spacex time.

Also, I believe that money was taken away by congress.

Latest I can find is that the current draft bill passed out of committee limits AF spending from this particular pot of money to 75% on main stage engines, 25% on everything else:

http://spacenews.com/the-rd-180-amendment-was-one-of-two-launch-related-provisions-that-made-it-into-the-national-defense-authorization-act-of-2017-by-the-time-the-committee-voted-60-to-2-to-send-the-bill-to-the-full/

House Armed Services Committee language only -- Senate committee headed by Senator McCain might have an opinion that differs with House.  Congress far from deciding anything yet.
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Offline JamesH65

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Re: SpaceX Falcon Heavy - Red Dragon to Mars - 2018
« Reply #698 on: 05/08/2016 06:37 pm »
Payload should include some form of deployable solar arrays - and the means to clean them of the dust. If there were circular sets it might be as simple as a rotating wand/brush . That and a camera and possibly a scooper arm to dig down a bit might be enough for flight 1. A good telescope to show Earth and Moon from Mars would be cool too.

A lot of people seem to be overestimating how much Red Dragon is going to do. Red Dragon will be a stripped down Dragon 2 with lots of sensors, some interplanetary comms and no scientific payload. It will not deploy a rover. It will not have solar panels (other than what's on the trunk). It will be battery powered and take a few photos. The main purpose of the mission is to get data return on EDL techniques that will input into the design of MCT. Two years is not enough time to design build and test anything fancy.

You've used "will" and "will not" a lot - are those facts known to you, or are they your opinions?

And why do you think they are only just starting to develop this? As far as I can tell, it's been in planning (and possible prototyping, but that's my opinion)  for at least two years already.

Offline cuddihy

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Re: SpaceX Falcon Heavy - Red Dragon to Mars - 2018
« Reply #699 on: 05/08/2016 06:43 pm »
Ok, so what would be the likeliest science / engineering tests SpaceX would want to accomplish with RD 2018? (I'm specifically focused on once the Dragon is landed, because obviously that's a major piece of it...)

Here's my thoughts on boundaries:
 In order to make 2018, they would have had to been working on concepts for these items related to Mars colonization already.  So best value for money is things that:

1. have up front uncertainty about how well they actually work in the Mars environment
 -that cuts out anything NASA has done or is doing today
2. related to processes that HAVE to work early for ISRU or functioning colonization
 -that means towards producing water, oxygen/lox, and methane
 -or whatever other gasses you can get
3. BUT can't be well simulated on the ground.
 - that means Sabatier process is probably lower priority than precursors like collecting CO2 & water
4. and can be engineered into a Dragon profile without huge changes
 - that means major drilling/mining rovers are probably unlikely
5. are "TRL today" so it can make schedule for design
 - so simpler processes /materials are best
6. not too heavy or power intensive
 - which is a crappy constraint for anything but there it is
So if you put some big known engineering question marks out there:

A) ability to capture water from martian air?
B) ability to capture /use gases from martian air?
C) ability to use / control thermal environment inside/outside Dragon?
D) effect of martian particulates over time on things related to A,B,C,E?
E) ability to ignite a Raptor preburner/chamber in the Martian environment with ISRU- produced fuels?

That leads you pretty quickly to set of prioritized experiments:

(1) WAVAR -like zeolite experiment to capture water: http://www.lpi.usra.edu/publications/reports/CB-955/washington.pdf
(2) one to collect / compress Martian air,
(3) one to crack the CO2 and store the O2 as LOX
(4) one to test ability to use hull penetrations to control gases / internal thermal environment
(5) one to test a set of methane spark igniters over time in the Martian environment

I think (5) is more important to address early than you might think: it's going to drive whether or not you have to bring TEA/TEB, which means big changes to the mass budget and required changes to the Raptor engine, which for obvious reasons is a BIG DEAL.

with (4) I'm referring to using martian ambient as a part of gas liquification / separation, not the ability to control Dragon's normal thermal environment... although that's important for Red Dragon too, since it will have to bring an alternate power/thermal control for surface ops once the trunk goes away before descent to the Martian surface.


« Last Edit: 05/08/2016 07:34 pm by cuddihy »

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