Cargo manifest for first Starship (BFS) Mars mission

[Slarty1080]

There has been a lot of talk on the BFS engineering thread about crane design and unloading 100 ton payloads. It will probably happen eventually, but I can’t see that happening in the initial phase. But it made me think what would likely be the single heaviest item they will need to unload in the first (or first few) missions?

And following on from that what will they take to Mars and what is the scope for unloading anyway? 100 tons of payload, but how much of that 100 tons includes a whole load of stuff that will never need unloading such as oxygen, ECLSS, water, food etc or on robotic missions items that are separate entities such as solar array, nuclear power, rover, ISRU, extra supplies for the crew, scientific equipment etc.

So would anyone like to hazard a guess at the manifest for the first robotic and first crewed BFS missions to Mars? To include the nature of the items and their mass (highest to lowest).

[ThereIWas3]

I would expect the ISRU processing equipment for the initial flight sequence to just stay aboard the first cargo BFS, using its own tanks for storage.

[speedevil]

On the powering martian civilisation from ebay thread I noted you can fit enough batteries and commercially available solar panels with lightweight wire frames on a BFS to provide around 500kW average solar power.

This is about enough to provide, with free water, a couple of BFS retankings per synod at 50% efficiency.

Commercial trial plantsactually exist already of the ISRU part - 6MW@50% efficiency is slightly larger than required for an initial plant.

A third or so full of solar panels and batteries.
A third rovers and support systems - several simple high bandwidth tesla sized rovers with lots of sensors so if they break it doesn't really matter.
Three point hitch or equivalent system and front loader/simple arm attachments.

A 'repair shop' - with standard industrial arms, teleoperated from earth. These arms can also (with heaters) be mounted on a rover.

Simple flat insulation panels with clips to form overnight garages for them to avoid having to keep warm overnight.

Ten tons of water.

Remaining mass ISRU trial plant.

Get experience putting stuff on the surface of Mars, and operating equipment there, and confidence that your power and ECLSS systems work long-term on the surface.
Find reserves of ice, and try to extract trial quantities, but more importantly explore.
If you can't find ice, you've proved out much of your martian infrastructure anyway, and can test out the ISRU plant with the water.

- as an example of a design broadly similar to what I mean for rovers.

Lots of attachments, from hole digging, to terrain grooming, to light earthworks are available.

I note as I've noted in the past that these things can't be overly designed.
The cost of a BFS to Mars is of the order of $200M, if you do not recover it.

This is around $2000/kg. If you are spending more than around three days of engineer time designing out a kilo, you should stop, and just ship it to Mars as is, as it's cheaper to send another BFS. (of course, units produced in volume can have more work)

[KelvinZero]

Hi, Im enthusiastic about designs that can offload monolithic 100t cargo items by themselves.. but I can't really argue it is vital. It is really just an interesting problem. It seems a pity to have a large cargo space but be limited to bite-sized elements.

 I think the nature of early set up is that you want many discrete objects in the first missions. Multiple rovers. Solar power farms. The fact you need any of these things means you will not also have a monolithic cargo item filling the entire space.

 Im a big fan of having multiple robust teleoperated flat bed type rovers that can carry various equipment, and can later carry cabins for humans later. No only could these perform a large number of tasks both before and after people, it is possible that the first site will have issues that are only discovered once you have these rovers actually there to do proper prospecting.

In this case these rovers could perform an alternative mission of prospecting in a wide radius around the original site, so the next landing is definitely to the perfect spot. They could also carry much of the equipment, but any plans of exploiting the landed BFS might have to be abandoned. Settlement might be delayed a synod but start from a much better position.

[Ionmars]

Hi, Im enthusiastic about designs that can offload monolithic 100t cargo items by themselves.. but I can't really argue it is vital. It is really just an interesting problem. It seems a pity to have a large cargo space but be limited to bite-sized elements.

 I think the nature of early set up is that you want many discrete objects in the first missions. Multiple rovers. Solar power farms. The fact you need any of these things means you will not also have a monolithic cargo item filling the entire space.

 Im a big fan of having multiple robust teleoperated flat bed type rovers that can carry various equipment, and can later carry cabins for humans later. No only could these perform a large number of tasks both before and after people, it is possible that the first site will have issues that are only discovered once you have these rovers actually there to do proper prospecting.

In this case these rovers could perform an alternative mission of prospecting in a wide radius around the original site, so the next landing is definitely to the perfect spot. They could also carry much of the equipment, but any plans of exploiting the landed BFS might have to be abandoned. Settlement might be delayed a synod but start from a much better position.

I like your approach.
While I have been promoting the idea of large modules that fill up the cargo bay for ready-to-use greenhouses, habitats and laboratories, I don’t think they are feasible in the first few landings. Among the first landings you would deposit components to build a crane or vessel grappler that could unload large modules later.
 
Components of a crane could be pretty compact. In an earlier thread, a representative from Caterpillar company showed how they can fold up a large piece of equipment for transport and unfold it at a construction site.

I also like your stepwise strategy. Land some things, explore, learn, and plan the next few landings with long-term goals in mind. Develop a base like SpaceX develops a rocket.

[ThereIWas3]

Essential first landing stuff has to fit in the aft cargo pods so they can just "roll off".  Those are not very big.  Rovers that can fit in there would be limited to work near the site, perhaps preparing the ground for larger things to be craned down from above.  The Apollo lunar rovers had to fold up very small like that, but those were for half the gravity of Mars.  And they were deployed by hand, using ropes and springs.

Maybe some initial solar panels.

[speedevil]

Essential first landing stuff has to fit in the aft cargo pods so they can just "roll off".  Those are not very big. 

It really doesn't.

The mechanisms needed to put a 1000m^3 100 ton payload from a chomper on the surface are complex and potentially heavy.
The mechanisms needed to put a 10m^3 3 ton rover on the surface are not.

It pretty much amounts to a couple of 3 ton rated 'full extension drawer slides' and a winch.

Off-nominal landings seem as likely to collapse the legs partially so stuff in the aft cargo compartment is trapped, as fall over, so that may be a wash too.

Not that the aft cargo compartments may not be useful, but it's by no means required.

[DreamyPickle]

 * ISRU plant integrated with the vehicle
 * Solar panels
 * Autonomous robots to unpack the solar panels and collect water from the surrounding area.

[matthewkantar]

On the very first BFS, I would include a hundred tons of cheap, durable, but vital supplies. Some of this material might even survive an imperfect landing and be helpful to future manned missions. Complete on board ISRU gear and  water/ice mining equipment would be sent in subsequent ships.

I would consider payload on the first trip, and additional trips until landing model is confirmed, to almost be mass simulators.

-Very securely packaged dry food stuffs
-Basic tools. Some essential tools are as durable as bricks.
-ironically, water, frozen in multi-use aluminum cylinders or some similar containers.
-wire
-scaffolding
-etc

Best case scenario, they nail the landing the first time and have 100 tons of gear to utilize in the future. At worst there will be some salvageable gear on site, and what is lost will not have cost much.

Matthew

[speedevil]

what is lost will not have cost much.

$1500-1800 or so per kg.
Even if it's coke cans.
Going too cheap probably isn't the way to go.

[Semmel]

Ok here is an idea. The ISRU plant is going into the trunks at the BFS business end. Readily connected, easy access to put muddy ice in and take residuals out. No deployment required. Possibility to hook up other BFS nearby in case of need. Solar panels go into the upper cargo area, lighter modules, deployable with a dedicated robot. An other robot mines ice/regolyth for ISRU and sample return. Before lift off, ditch the ISRU plant and go with a full tank, samples for return and no dead mass from the ISRU plant. Of course, it has to fit, but looks like there is lots of volume.

[Cologan]

Ok here is an idea. The ISRU plant is going into the trunks at the BFS business end. Readily connected, easy access to put muddy ice in and take residuals out. No deployment required. Possibility to hook up other BFS nearby in case of need. Solar panels go into the upper cargo area, lighter modules, deployable with a dedicated robot. An other robot mines ice/regolyth for ISRU and sample return. Before lift off, ditch the ISRU plant and go with a full tank, samples for return and no dead mass from the ISRU plant. Of course, it has to fit, but looks like there is lots of volume.

Assuming youd have the rack space, why not have the ISRU plant AND a rover capable of moving that plant in a more favourable position, so it doesnt get toasted at takeoff&can be used again ? In fact, id have 2 rovers down there first, as the bottom racks are propably gonna be the easiest place to deploy from. Rovers first, they can move out of the way & help with deployment. They should also have enough energy in them to not be initially dependant on the yet to be deployed powerplant.

Have the ISRU plant ready to go asap , but also have it be movable and reconfigurable by rovers. This way you can still fill up your tanks, THEN move the ISRU to a safe distance.

EDIT: On second read, you kind of implied the capability to move ISRU out of the way. I still think rovers should be able to be deployed first. Would be super interesting to see someone work out if the rack space is enough for ISRU + Rovers. I could do some primitive guesses at best.

[Cologan]

On the very first BFS, I would include a hundred tons of cheap, durable, but vital supplies. Some of this material might even survive an imperfect landing and be helpful to future manned missions. Complete on board ISRU gear and  water/ice mining equipment would be sent in subsequent ships.

I would consider payload on the first trip, and additional trips until landing model is confirmed, to almost be mass simulators.

-Very securely packaged dry food stuffs
-Basic tools. Some essential tools are as durable as bricks.
-ironically, water, frozen in multi-use aluminum cylinders or some similar containers.
-wire
-scaffolding
-etc

Best case scenario, they nail the landing the first time and have 100 tons of gear to utilize in the future. At worst there will be some salvageable gear on site, and what is lost will not have cost much.

Matthew

This could work well under the best case scenario.

Somehow though i think its safer to assume that you have at BEST 1 or 2 BFS to start with (built&on their way), with follow up missions relying on ONE of them coming back home, proving that it can be done, and maybe securing funding by companies flogging towards buying tickets? Anyhow, this would mean the first 2 BFS would be unmanned, and they have to be capable of construcing a limited ISRU plant. Under my assumption, filling one BFS with supplies for the first manned ship would be a very risky money-sink, its dead weight waiting to become usefull.

[Semmel]

Ok here is an idea. The ISRU plant is going into the trunks at the BFS business end. Readily connected, easy access to put muddy ice in and take residuals out. No deployment required. Possibility to hook up other BFS nearby in case of need. Solar panels go into the upper cargo area, lighter modules, deployable with a dedicated robot. An other robot mines ice/regolyth for ISRU and sample return. Before lift off, ditch the ISRU plant and go with a full tank, samples for return and no dead mass from the ISRU plant. Of course, it has to fit, but looks like there is lots of volume.

Assuming youd have the rack space, why not have the ISRU plant AND a rover capable of moving that plant in a more favourable position, so it doesnt get toasted at takeoff&can be used again ? In fact, id have 2 rovers down there first, as the bottom racks are propably gonna be the easiest place to deploy from. Rovers first, they can move out of the way & help with deployment. They should also have enough energy in them to not be initially dependant on the yet to be deployed powerplant.

Have the ISRU plant ready to go asap , but also have it be movable and reconfigurable by rovers. This way you can still fill up your tanks, THEN move the ISRU to a safe distance.

EDIT: On second read, you kind of implied the capability to move ISRU out of the way. I still think rovers should be able to be deployed first. Would be super interesting to see someone work out if the rack space is enough for ISRU + Rovers. I could do some primitive guesses at best.

You dont want to deploy the ISRU because you would have to connect pipes and cables. Better to minimize that and have everything connected and ready to be used. Also, you dont want to bring the ISRU plant back with you since its dead weight. Finally, the plant must be accessible for putting regolyth in and take the residuals out. The trunk space is the obvious solution to that. For a permanent installation after humans arrive, I agree with you, a surface installed ISRU unit would be beneficial. But for the very first ships, better to not deploy, especially when all you can work with are robots.

[Melonhead]

Musk has been fairly clear that he’d like to send two ships at the first opportunity, and that the first ships sent will be unmanned.  However, that doesn’t mean they’re both freighters.

I’d submit one freighter and one ship with cargo and life support capability for twelve.  That gives you the opportunity to see how well the life support operates long term, albeit without human intervention if something goes wrong.  Once a crewed ship arrives, the previous ship with life support provides instant redundancy.  (In this scenario, the crewed ship is also accompanied by a freighter.)  Various posters have already identified most of these, but the OP asked for a manifest.

So, you’ll need a solar field for each ship, with accompanying robotic equipment to unload the panels and set them up.  That suggests some type of rover with robotic arm/crane and a trailer to haul the panels.  For redundancy, each ship should carry one of each.

You also need to verify the presence of water, so the freighter should also carry a rover with a variety of drills/sensors for sampling the area.  (Presumably, orbital surveys have already indicated where water “should” be below the surface in the vicinity of the landing site.)  Integrating those on Earth will simplify the ground survey process.

Actually doing any sort of ice mining robotically seems to be a stretch, but including a jackhammer-style accessory for a rover would be a good way to verify assumptions about how well we can break up regolith.  The obvious follow-on to that is a bulldozer blade attachment, again to verify no surprises in moving the broken-up regolith, which we’ll need to do for mining and building a hab.  These seem doable autonomously.

A couple of navigation beacons, with integrated solar power, are called for.  A rover would place them well away from the landing site to assist follow-on ships with precision landings.

After this, it becomes a matter of, “How much mass/volume do we have left?”  I’m assuming robotic mining is impractical, so don’t bring the ISRU gear yet; spend two more years refining it (pun intended).  Bring the ISRU plant and mining equipment on a dedicated refinery ship arriving with Heart of Gold.  A few tons of rations, on the other hand—the sort that would survive a mild crash-landing—will provide margin for later missions.  Additional solar panels provide the same advantage, minus the crash-landing aspect.  If there’s any doubt about the best technology for test drilling, then send both alternatives.

Since we’re interested in the reliability of the life support system, any components even remotely questionable need redundancy, and a way to replace them.  We’ll be building a hab soon enough, so equipment to generate oxygen and scrub carbon dioxide would be useful to preposition.  And we could use an awesome set of tools...about anything you can imagine for making repairs would be useful, whether tools or spare hardware.  We’ll need to be able to repair everything, from rovers to spacesuits to motors to shelters.  We don’t want to discover the hard way that a particular part has an unsatisfactory mean time between failure.

Rounding out our manifest is likely to be calendar-constrained.  There are a fair number of things we’d like to send, but these really come down to whether they’re ready when the first BFR is ready.  SpaceX is relying on “others” to build out a lot of capability, and most of those “others” haven’t yet committed to the SpaceX schedule.  No matter.  We can fill every kilogram available.  I’m bringing a pizza oven.

[KelvinZero]

The Insight heat probe looks fairly interesting. It looks fairly small but they are expecting it to burrow down 5 meters!
https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/spacecraft/instruments/hp3/

That could be plenty to access ice in many locations with my favourite approach: a "rodriguez well", and presumably a somewhat bigger one could get you to 10 meters.

I have heard that robotic drilling is hard, but this makes it seem lightweight enough that you could bring a whole bunch of spares.

[Slarty1080]

Then there’s all the boring stuff for the crewed missions:
4-6 people themselves, disposable clothes, their food, their drinking and food hydration water, (sufficient for 2-3 years) a few personal possessions and containers/racking to hold everything.
Washing waster, hygiene wipes, soap, toothpaste
Extra radiation shielding,
ECLSS water and air regeneration and waste management subsystems with all their tanks and distribution pipework, water and air quality monitoring systems, toilet(s) and shower(s) and the multitude of spare parts required for all these things like filters and pumps.
Mars surface suits, spare suits and suit spares for a long stay on the surface and decontamination equipment and any expendables that might have.
Internal fittings like decks, walls, ladders, doors, seats, tables, chairs, beds, lights, cupboards and acceleration couches.
Medical supplies will be needed to cover a very wide range of eventualities including instruments used for diagnosis, surgical sutures and other medical instruments, splints and supports, a wide range of medicines and a variety of contingency arrangements (what if anyone dies?)
Computer equipment, coms equipment
Standard tools (drills, bits, screwdrivers, spanners, knives/saws etc)
General materials for repairs (spare ducting, cabling, pipework, duct tape, glue, suit repair patches, seals)

No doubt great ingenuity will be used to condense and lighten all of these items and many more that I haven’t listed, but on a crewed mission there will be nowhere near 100 tons available for scientific / exploratory payload.

[JonathanD]

Hopefully as soon as their internal design is nailed down, SpaceX releases specifications for standardized cargo pods.  That way, third parties can start designing payloads to fit.  Even cargo pods themselves may need some self-opening capability for early non-crewed flights.

[Slarty1080]

Hopefully as soon as their internal design is nailed down, SpaceX releases specifications for standardized cargo pods.  That way, third parties can start designing payloads to fit.  Even cargo pods themselves may need some self-opening capability for early non-crewed flights.

Yes - a bit early for that now, but in time that would be a very good idea - something that Musk would want to encourage I feel.

[Melonhead]

Hopefully as soon as their internal design is nailed down, SpaceX releases specifications for standardized cargo pods.  That way, third parties can start designing payloads to fit.  Even cargo pods themselves may need some self-opening capability for early non-crewed flights.

Yes - a bit early for that now, but in time that would be a very good idea - something that Musk would want to encourage I feel.

I'd argue it's not too early at all.  If SpaceX really wants folks to start planning, they need to provide at least a draft "developer's kit."  What are the dimensions of the loading hatch expected to be?  How will the cargo be secured?  What utilities will be available?  (Power--how much?  What voltage/frequency?  What type of interface?)  For unloading, what does that interface look like?  Musk minimized this with, "It's a crane."  Okay, without a human to hook up my cargo, how will that crane unload my stuff?  Something like the intermodal container industry?  Something else?

I need to know these things to start engineering for real.  Doing some additional "first cargo" planning, I'd like to modify my rations loadout.  Half should be prepped food, e.g. MRE's.  But, since that will drive the crew absolutely insane, the other half should be survivable basic ingredients...flour, sugar, yeast, rice, pastas, beans, spices.  In a serious survival situation, I can mix flour with water and choke it down.  In a more civilized survival scenario, fresh bread makes that MRE a lot more palatable.  Even if I can't fit a real pizza oven, it looks like a regular oven does make the cut.

Coffee.  Lots of coffee.

We should be honest.  Malted barley.  Hops.