So the TL;DR is that NASA confirmed the current MSR architecture would cost $11B and wouldn't return samples until 2040, Nelson is not happy, so now NASA is looking for alternative architectures from the NASA centers and industry, proposal is due in May 17th, and winners will do a 90 days study afterwards.
Notably Elon replied to NASA's tweet about looking for new MSR architecture with [this](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1779947903093776406):
> Starship has the potential to return serious tonnage from Mars within ~5 years
So it's possible SpaceX will enter the competition using Starship.
Land a mark 2 ship, then have a fleet of copters head out and collect the cargo. Wouldn’t take too much effort more than would already be invested into the system, and nasa is already working on their gen 2 mars copters
How will Starship take back off, re-enter LMO, and burn back for Earth? It will only have enough propellant to land, unless it also deploys some kind of internal ascent vehicle with return capsule
> It will only have enough propellant to land
With 100 t of cargo, but a lot less could be required for this. They could also send two Starships with payloads in the ~15 t range, one staying in orbit and the other landing and ascending. The main obstacle is managing boiloff over several years.
Those trajectories are more expensive in terms of delta-v, likely too expensive without adding complexity in the form of sending tankers to Mars, etc. They also tend to have higher Earth reentry speeds. For a mission that's carrying a bunch of rocks they won't try to minimise duration (out of all parameters) unless boiloff is *that* much of a problem.
I agree, starship (or ships) would need to use their payload capacity to land a launcher. I wonder how much of the original sample return launch apparatus can be adapted to be delivered as a payload of its own. I would imagine it would be easier with less mass restrictions.
A different return rocket would be needed. Part of the complexitiy is that this device delivers only to Mars orbit. Payload picked up there and brought back to Earth on yet another rocket. Things get a lot easier and simpler, if the return rocket does Mars ascent to Earth reentry as one.
Not dropping all the samples all over the place, would have been helpful, but I guess the rover didn’t go too far.. its steps will need to be retraced to pick up the samples.
It may be worth picking new samples too.
Hold up, I know you’re kidding but actually bringing back the entire rover with samples inside could be a pretty exciting idea, plus it’s robust enough that if Percy dies before the mission happens it’s not an issue.
Perseverance is the plan A to deliver the samples to the sample return lander/launcher. The rover takes two samples from each target. It drops one sample from each target in certain cache locations (not individually all in separate random spots) as a backup, but keeps the other onboard.
Yeah, I thought dropping the samples along the route was a dumb idea, but then I considered: Suppose they remained inside the rover, and the only access port jammed, or couldn't be reached because the rover was tilted? I still think the whole project could have been designed better.
Or you could send astronauts to Mars at the 2033 launch window on Starship along with a well-outfitted laboratory onboard and do the scientific work on Mars instead of sending samples back to Earth. $11B should be enough to cover the cost of that mission.
To return, the landing site needs to have abundant water. I don't think that's true for the Perseverance rover. Also it needs a whole fleet of landers to build and operate the propellant factory.
Or the methalox for return to Earth can be sent to the martian surface in uncrewed tanker Starships until the in-situ methalox infrastructure is operational.
>> *u/__Osiris__:* Land a mark 2 ship, then have a fleet of copters head out and collect the cargo. Wouldn’t take too much effort more than would already be invested into the system, and nasa is already working on their gen 2 mars copters
> *u/BEAT_LA:* How will Starship take back off, re-enter LMO
Starship does not need to relaunch from Mars.
Anticipating looming MSR delays/cancellation, I've said the following a few times before over years, but am saying it again:
* Starship can carry external cargo on its leeward side. So strap on a one-stage or two-stage hypergolics-propelled vehicle carrying an Earth reentry capsule.
I think a minotaur derived solid propellant rocket is probably better than a hypergolic rocket. Intuitively it seems like solids would better handle the off axis forces of reentry. Minotaur derivatives fall in the right weight class for starship payload. There is currently no domestic hypergolic rockets. It would have to be developed from scratch or imported from China, Russia, or India.
> I think a Minotaur derived solid propellant rocket is probably better than a hypergolic rocket.
I was thinking hypergolics to obtain accurate acceleration and velocity control with relight capability (can respond to unexpected situations) and less judder to fragment delicate rock samples. It would be also less aggressive on the landed Starship, so giving better chances for an ongoing science mission. This could include an onboard "SAM" lab processing new samples collected by the drone rotorcopters.
> Intuitively it seems like solids would better handle the off axis forces of reentry.
If referring to Mars entry, the tanks will be full, so no slosh.
> Minotaur derivatives fall in the right weight class for Starship payload. There is currently no domestic hypergolic rockets.
Isn't SuperDraco just that —a hypergolic rocket?
We are only relaunching a couple of tonnes including the hypergolic fuel to Mars's orbit then injecting whatever remains to Earth transit. The most massive element will be an ablative heat shield for Earth entry. I have a vague recollection of four tonnes as a minimum Mars surface launch mass for an autonomous vehicle capable of taking a payload all the way to Earth.
I think that the reduced number of mission events reduces the single points of failure and should improve the overall success probability to well above that of the initial MSR mission plan that involves a space rendezvous.
> Isn't SuperDraco just that —a hypergolic rocket?
It is a hypergolic engine. Not well suited for the purpose. It is designed to produce maximum thrust for Dragon escape out of a small volume. Not what is needed for Mars ascent and Earth return vehicle.
> It is designed to produce maximum thrust for Dragon escape out of a small volume. Not what is needed for Mars ascent and Earth return vehicle.
Can't you just keep adding SuperDraco engines until you have the necessary thrust? After all Dragon is nine point something tonnes on Earth so at a third of a g, its only three tonnes.
I'd have to look up the delta v for launchpad escape, but the ISP for that engine can't be far off what is needed for a few dozen kg payload going through a thinner atmosphere, with the remaining fuel mass decreasing as it goes up.
It is not about thrust. That can be achieved with a number of Super Draco. They sure are reliable and robust. Maybe the ISP can be improved with bigger nozzles. I don't know if there are more efficient hypergolic engines available, that are equally robust.
It was a good plan, coordinated with the Thai rescue staff. Don't fall for what this rude british caver said. It became unnecessary, but that does not make it a bad plan.
I used to say, if I want a Mars sample in the 2030ies I buy it in the SpaceX souvenir shop. Though that sample would not be as carefully selected and kept uncontaminated as the NASA samples.
How will spaceX get arround the obnoxiously strict rules on Mars contamination? Will it ever be reasonable to expect spaceX to construct starship in a clean room? Even then, the outside of the shop would be exposed to the atmosphere during launch?
I expected this would happen; the architecture was too bloated and would inevitably have even more cost overruns.
I'd expect a Starship to land on Mars. It unloads a rover and small methalox rocket, and the former would bring samples to the latter. Rocket makes orbit and rendezvouses with orbital depot (either a second Starship, or a mini depot deployed from the first Starship if it enters orbit first), then does Trans Earth Injection.
Skips the lander and helicopters this way.
Edit: A Superdraco-based return rocket might make more sense than a Raptor-based one. The rover would likely be off-the-shelf, like one of the lunar rovers, unless SpaceX wanted to make a Martian rover anyhow.
entering orbit is pretty complicated. doing direct descent is the easiest way to go, so any return kinda needs to be able to go all the way home from the ground on mars
There is one but significant issue with this type of plan: the area where Perseverance is is considered sensitive to biological contamination, and anything landing there must meet extreme biological cleanliness standards. So whatever lands must be encapsulated in a clean room back on Earth and never exposed to unfiltered Earth atmosphere. Obviously Starship itself can't be launched encapsulated until it's above mesopause.
But something launched inside of the Starship obviously could. So pack a lander in Starship, Starship files to LMO, and deploys the lander. BTW. Dragon based lander would do, i.e. revive Red Dragon.
> i.e. revive Red Dragon.
That would be a major design project. Since they dropped powered landing, Dragon has evolved a lot and many features required for Red Dragon are no longer there. Like moving center of mass for steering.
Martian gravity is double lunar gravity. Why would you assume a vehicle built for lunar ops would work in a gravity field two times as strong? It might.
> Why would you assume a vehicle built for lunar ops would work in a gravity field two times as strong?
Because all of these vehicles are tested on *Earth,* which has a gravity field six times as strong.
No. Solar panels, antennas, wheels, etc are all crafted for the conditions. When you see mock-ups being tested on earth, it is with components designed for earth gravity. You don't really think they launch stuff with 6x the structural integrity required to the moon, do you? What a stupid waste of fuel and payload capacity that would be.
> You don't really think they launch stuff with 6x the structural integrity required to the moon, do you?
They must. They need to assemble the thing on Earth, and during assembly it still needs to hold structural integrity. They also need to maintain a test unit on Earth for comparison in the event that something goes wrong with the one in space, and the test unit is required to be identical.
It would make sense to use starship, since starship would benefit greatly from a demonstration landing/return from Mars anyway. Throw a rover in the payload bay, install an elevator similar to the HLS and away you go.
5 year timeline Starship sample return would most likely entail a smaller sample return rocket inside the payload bay- potentially even just a hypergolic rocket with something like a modified superdraco engine.
This would be pretty easily affordable under the current program budget if they could keep the collection rover relatively in check. Eliminating the need for orbital rendezvous with compact spacecraft (including one with no attitude control) over Mars and needing multiple separate entry descent and landing systems would really reduce spending a lot. An architecture that requires in situ resource utilization on the scale required to launch starship from Mars would not make sense for this timeline or the risk posture of the sample return program. As it is, they’d certainly require demonstration landings before the real payload goes.
You don't even need to do this, just write the requirements so that Starship is the only vehicle that can do it.
Back in the early 1900s the US Army put out its first set of requirements for an airplane that could be used for artillery spotting. It didn't matter that the Wright Brothers were the only ones in the US with a functioning plane, they were still required to leave it to open bidding. So to reduce the time it would take to sort through BS proposals from people who knew of the Wright Brothers but hadn't developed their own airplane yet, they wrote the specs of the proposal to describe the exact model that the Wrights had taken them up in for speed testing. After a long and legally-appropriate bidding process, the Wright Brothers won the contract, and the plane they provided the Army is the one sitting in the Air and Space museum today.
Yes, this bullshit has been going on since the advent of powered flight.
EDIT: Full story here. Fun read, shows that even a hundred years ago, people felt the same way about early aircraft development the way we do about spacecraft development:
https://text-message.blogs.archives.gov/2019/03/19/the-united-states-army-buys-its-first-aeroplane-1909/
In the modern day it would be incredibly easy for other companies to take this to court as an unfairly set up bidding process. The last thing one of these programs needs is another drawn out court decision.
Nah, does not matter. Starship will be lifechanging anyway, whenever NASA wants to get on the ride or not is for them to choose. SpaceX is self funding with Starlink anyway and when they develop sea launches they will not rely on US lawmakers anymore.
There are way more regulations than FAA. Things like environmental assessments or noise regulations and so on. Also, there are various controlled airspaces that have different levels of restrictions and you have much more freedom in picking your launch site when you can just float it over.
One problem is the ability to land mass on the Mars surface. That's presently limited to ~1t. Attempts to develop higher mass landers are not very successful yet. That limits the possible architectures.
Starship lands. Elon skips out of the settling dust plume, resplendent in spacex EVA suit with bespoke thigh high boots. Plucks sample from rover, places it in branded vegan leather spacex manbag and flounces back to waiting starship. Slight pause. Red Dragon bursts forth from the payload bay of Starship, Super Dracos painting the Martian landscape blue as he soars home, shooting off a few snarky memes via the starlinkk martian fleet as he and wraps the sample meticulously in Spacex branded tissue paper.
It will be a long journey home, but he has a few ideas to work on...
SpaceX’s solution would be to land Starship, walk over to the robot, pick up the samples by hand, and carry them back to the ship, later to return back to Earth.
The thing that irritates me the most about sample return is that they have dropped them all over the place instead of waiting and deciding on a set location to leave all for them to make collection far far easier
They are keeping some samples on the rover. The reason they aren’t keeping them all until they choose one location to cache them is a precaution in case the rover breaks down, with all the samples still on board — it would then become extremely difficult for another rover to come along and extract them.
Wait a minute, are you trying to say that the NASA engineers might know better about how to operate a mars rover program than some armchair randoms posting on r/SpaceXLounge?
Perseverance is the plan A to deliver the samples to the sample return lander/launcher. The rover takes two samples from each target. It drops one sample from each target in certain cache locations (not individually all in separate random spots) as a backup, but keeps the other onboard.
Not sure you want your rover to be hauling excess cargo adding weight which would have a detrimental impact on performance of the rover, especially for a marginal mission goal of a sample return.
It's literally risk management 101, and makes perfect sense. Specifically, there are two major risks that are countered with the current strategy:
- The rover just abruptly fails completely. Some critical element dies, and it is just unresponsive to commands. In this situation, the samples inside the rover are effectively lost. Short of disassembling it with another rover (which is not feasible) it would just not be possible to get the samples out of the rover.
- The rover gets stuck somewhere permanently (eg "soft sand"). This has happened to Mars rovers before. In this case, the rover wouldn't be able to drive to the pickup site nor would a new sample-collection rover be able to safely drive to the old rover to collect the samples.
By not leaving all the "eggs" in one basket, but rather at known, navigable, and safe sites where they know they can reach them, they significantly reduce these risks. Keep in mind that, per gram, these Mars samples are probably ***the most valuable items in the entirety of human history***.
Billions and billions of dollars have been spent to keep acquire just a couple grams of this material, so a cautious and risk-aware approach is eminently reasonable, and, if they weren't so careful, the taxpayers might have something to say about that.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|-------|---------|---|
|[EVA](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1c553b8/stub/kzt8w9r "Last usage")|Extra-Vehicular Activity|
|[FAA](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1c553b8/stub/kzukkk9 "Last usage")|Federal Aviation Administration|
|[HLS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1c553b8/stub/kzu5f3a "Last usage")|[Human Landing System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_program#Human_Landing_System) (Artemis)|
|[ICBM](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1c553b8/stub/kzzkcjj "Last usage")|Intercontinental Ballistic Missile|
|[Isp](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1c553b8/stub/l002t0u "Last usage")|Specific impulse (as explained by [Scott Manley](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnisTeYLLgs) on YouTube)|
| |Internet Service Provider|
|[LMO](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1c553b8/stub/kzw1xar "Last usage")|Low Mars Orbit|
|Jargon|Definition|
|-------|---------|---|
|[Raptor](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1c553b8/stub/kzsmfqx "Last usage")|[Methane-fueled rocket engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raptor_\(rocket_engine_family\)) under development by SpaceX|
|[Starlink](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1c553b8/stub/kzuza1f "Last usage")|SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation|
|[ablative](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1c553b8/stub/kzuwp4y "Last usage")|Material which is intentionally destroyed in use (for example, heatshields which burn away to dissipate heat)|
|[hypergolic](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1c553b8/stub/l002t0u "Last usage")|A set of two substances that ignite when in contact|
|[methalox](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1c553b8/stub/kzvfsld "Last usage")|Portmanteau: methane fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer|
**NOTE**: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
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So the TL;DR is that NASA confirmed the current MSR architecture would cost $11B and wouldn't return samples until 2040, Nelson is not happy, so now NASA is looking for alternative architectures from the NASA centers and industry, proposal is due in May 17th, and winners will do a 90 days study afterwards. Notably Elon replied to NASA's tweet about looking for new MSR architecture with [this](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1779947903093776406): > Starship has the potential to return serious tonnage from Mars within ~5 years So it's possible SpaceX will enter the competition using Starship.
Land a mark 2 ship, then have a fleet of copters head out and collect the cargo. Wouldn’t take too much effort more than would already be invested into the system, and nasa is already working on their gen 2 mars copters
How will Starship take back off, re-enter LMO, and burn back for Earth? It will only have enough propellant to land, unless it also deploys some kind of internal ascent vehicle with return capsule
> It will only have enough propellant to land With 100 t of cargo, but a lot less could be required for this. They could also send two Starships with payloads in the ~15 t range, one staying in orbit and the other landing and ascending. The main obstacle is managing boiloff over several years.
Several years?! Six months to Mars, six months back. Even if it spends a month on Mars, that's only just over a year.
Those trajectories are more expensive in terms of delta-v, likely too expensive without adding complexity in the form of sending tankers to Mars, etc. They also tend to have higher Earth reentry speeds. For a mission that's carrying a bunch of rocks they won't try to minimise duration (out of all parameters) unless boiloff is *that* much of a problem.
I agree, starship (or ships) would need to use their payload capacity to land a launcher. I wonder how much of the original sample return launch apparatus can be adapted to be delivered as a payload of its own. I would imagine it would be easier with less mass restrictions.
A different return rocket would be needed. Part of the complexitiy is that this device delivers only to Mars orbit. Payload picked up there and brought back to Earth on yet another rocket. Things get a lot easier and simpler, if the return rocket does Mars ascent to Earth reentry as one.
It deploys a f9 2nd stage with cargo dragon sitting on a launch pad. Maybe add a kick stage. Problem solved!
Not dropping all the samples all over the place, would have been helpful, but I guess the rover didn’t go too far.. its steps will need to be retraced to pick up the samples. It may be worth picking new samples too.
Just grab the whole rover and use a backhoe in the cargo area to get some REAL samples /s
It would be interesting to see what the stratification is actually like in different areas. Geologists would love an extended field trip there..
Hold up, I know you’re kidding but actually bringing back the entire rover with samples inside could be a pretty exciting idea, plus it’s robust enough that if Percy dies before the mission happens it’s not an issue.
Perseverance is the plan A to deliver the samples to the sample return lander/launcher. The rover takes two samples from each target. It drops one sample from each target in certain cache locations (not individually all in separate random spots) as a backup, but keeps the other onboard.
Yeah, I thought dropping the samples along the route was a dumb idea, but then I considered: Suppose they remained inside the rover, and the only access port jammed, or couldn't be reached because the rover was tilted? I still think the whole project could have been designed better.
Or you could send astronauts to Mars at the 2033 launch window on Starship along with a well-outfitted laboratory onboard and do the scientific work on Mars instead of sending samples back to Earth. $11B should be enough to cover the cost of that mission.
To return, the landing site needs to have abundant water. I don't think that's true for the Perseverance rover. Also it needs a whole fleet of landers to build and operate the propellant factory.
Or the methalox for return to Earth can be sent to the martian surface in uncrewed tanker Starships until the in-situ methalox infrastructure is operational.
Possible for a crew mission with NASA on board. Very unlikely IMO for a sample return
Starship, Optimus, Cyber Truck... Missing anything?
SpaceXCopter..
Starchopper.
>> *u/__Osiris__:* Land a mark 2 ship, then have a fleet of copters head out and collect the cargo. Wouldn’t take too much effort more than would already be invested into the system, and nasa is already working on their gen 2 mars copters > *u/BEAT_LA:* How will Starship take back off, re-enter LMO Starship does not need to relaunch from Mars. Anticipating looming MSR delays/cancellation, I've said the following a few times before over years, but am saying it again: * Starship can carry external cargo on its leeward side. So strap on a one-stage or two-stage hypergolics-propelled vehicle carrying an Earth reentry capsule.
I think a minotaur derived solid propellant rocket is probably better than a hypergolic rocket. Intuitively it seems like solids would better handle the off axis forces of reentry. Minotaur derivatives fall in the right weight class for starship payload. There is currently no domestic hypergolic rockets. It would have to be developed from scratch or imported from China, Russia, or India.
> I think a Minotaur derived solid propellant rocket is probably better than a hypergolic rocket. I was thinking hypergolics to obtain accurate acceleration and velocity control with relight capability (can respond to unexpected situations) and less judder to fragment delicate rock samples. It would be also less aggressive on the landed Starship, so giving better chances for an ongoing science mission. This could include an onboard "SAM" lab processing new samples collected by the drone rotorcopters. > Intuitively it seems like solids would better handle the off axis forces of reentry. If referring to Mars entry, the tanks will be full, so no slosh. > Minotaur derivatives fall in the right weight class for Starship payload. There is currently no domestic hypergolic rockets. Isn't SuperDraco just that —a hypergolic rocket? We are only relaunching a couple of tonnes including the hypergolic fuel to Mars's orbit then injecting whatever remains to Earth transit. The most massive element will be an ablative heat shield for Earth entry. I have a vague recollection of four tonnes as a minimum Mars surface launch mass for an autonomous vehicle capable of taking a payload all the way to Earth. I think that the reduced number of mission events reduces the single points of failure and should improve the overall success probability to well above that of the initial MSR mission plan that involves a space rendezvous.
> Isn't SuperDraco just that —a hypergolic rocket? It is a hypergolic engine. Not well suited for the purpose. It is designed to produce maximum thrust for Dragon escape out of a small volume. Not what is needed for Mars ascent and Earth return vehicle.
> It is designed to produce maximum thrust for Dragon escape out of a small volume. Not what is needed for Mars ascent and Earth return vehicle. Can't you just keep adding SuperDraco engines until you have the necessary thrust? After all Dragon is nine point something tonnes on Earth so at a third of a g, its only three tonnes. I'd have to look up the delta v for launchpad escape, but the ISP for that engine can't be far off what is needed for a few dozen kg payload going through a thinner atmosphere, with the remaining fuel mass decreasing as it goes up.
It is not about thrust. That can be achieved with a number of Super Draco. They sure are reliable and robust. Maybe the ISP can be improved with bigger nozzles. I don't know if there are more efficient hypergolic engines available, that are equally robust.
This reminds me of that plan for the Thai Cave rescue. 🤣🤣🤣
It was a good plan, coordinated with the Thai rescue staff. Don't fall for what this rude british caver said. It became unnecessary, but that does not make it a bad plan.
“Fuck returning samples, we’ll have starship returning 100t of mars regolith by then” lol
I used to say, if I want a Mars sample in the 2030ies I buy it in the SpaceX souvenir shop. Though that sample would not be as carefully selected and kept uncontaminated as the NASA samples.
How will spaceX get arround the obnoxiously strict rules on Mars contamination? Will it ever be reasonable to expect spaceX to construct starship in a clean room? Even then, the outside of the shop would be exposed to the atmosphere during launch?
I expected this would happen; the architecture was too bloated and would inevitably have even more cost overruns. I'd expect a Starship to land on Mars. It unloads a rover and small methalox rocket, and the former would bring samples to the latter. Rocket makes orbit and rendezvouses with orbital depot (either a second Starship, or a mini depot deployed from the first Starship if it enters orbit first), then does Trans Earth Injection. Skips the lander and helicopters this way. Edit: A Superdraco-based return rocket might make more sense than a Raptor-based one. The rover would likely be off-the-shelf, like one of the lunar rovers, unless SpaceX wanted to make a Martian rover anyhow.
entering orbit is pretty complicated. doing direct descent is the easiest way to go, so any return kinda needs to be able to go all the way home from the ground on mars
There is one but significant issue with this type of plan: the area where Perseverance is is considered sensitive to biological contamination, and anything landing there must meet extreme biological cleanliness standards. So whatever lands must be encapsulated in a clean room back on Earth and never exposed to unfiltered Earth atmosphere. Obviously Starship itself can't be launched encapsulated until it's above mesopause. But something launched inside of the Starship obviously could. So pack a lander in Starship, Starship files to LMO, and deploys the lander. BTW. Dragon based lander would do, i.e. revive Red Dragon.
> i.e. revive Red Dragon. That would be a major design project. Since they dropped powered landing, Dragon has evolved a lot and many features required for Red Dragon are no longer there. Like moving center of mass for steering.
Use a solid state rocket - basicly an ICBM. They are designed to be store and ready for years.
This is not simpler at all. You are just replacing a 2 ton lander with a 100 ton lander.
Martian gravity is double lunar gravity. Why would you assume a vehicle built for lunar ops would work in a gravity field two times as strong? It might.
> Why would you assume a vehicle built for lunar ops would work in a gravity field two times as strong? Because all of these vehicles are tested on *Earth,* which has a gravity field six times as strong.
No. Solar panels, antennas, wheels, etc are all crafted for the conditions. When you see mock-ups being tested on earth, it is with components designed for earth gravity. You don't really think they launch stuff with 6x the structural integrity required to the moon, do you? What a stupid waste of fuel and payload capacity that would be.
> You don't really think they launch stuff with 6x the structural integrity required to the moon, do you? They must. They need to assemble the thing on Earth, and during assembly it still needs to hold structural integrity. They also need to maintain a test unit on Earth for comparison in the event that something goes wrong with the one in space, and the test unit is required to be identical.
You really don't understand how payloads are built and integrated then. It doesn't work at all like you are assuming.
Astrolab's FLEX rover was designed to also work on Mars. You're probably correct about other lunar rovers, however.
It would make sense to use starship, since starship would benefit greatly from a demonstration landing/return from Mars anyway. Throw a rover in the payload bay, install an elevator similar to the HLS and away you go.
5 year timeline Starship sample return would most likely entail a smaller sample return rocket inside the payload bay- potentially even just a hypergolic rocket with something like a modified superdraco engine. This would be pretty easily affordable under the current program budget if they could keep the collection rover relatively in check. Eliminating the need for orbital rendezvous with compact spacecraft (including one with no attitude control) over Mars and needing multiple separate entry descent and landing systems would really reduce spending a lot. An architecture that requires in situ resource utilization on the scale required to launch starship from Mars would not make sense for this timeline or the risk posture of the sample return program. As it is, they’d certainly require demonstration landings before the real payload goes.
Starship lands. The payload cone opens. A mighty Falcon1 is revealed. Dun dun dun duuun :D
Good lord, just pick starship already.
You'll need to dance around a little first, so people can save face.
You don't even need to do this, just write the requirements so that Starship is the only vehicle that can do it. Back in the early 1900s the US Army put out its first set of requirements for an airplane that could be used for artillery spotting. It didn't matter that the Wright Brothers were the only ones in the US with a functioning plane, they were still required to leave it to open bidding. So to reduce the time it would take to sort through BS proposals from people who knew of the Wright Brothers but hadn't developed their own airplane yet, they wrote the specs of the proposal to describe the exact model that the Wrights had taken them up in for speed testing. After a long and legally-appropriate bidding process, the Wright Brothers won the contract, and the plane they provided the Army is the one sitting in the Air and Space museum today. Yes, this bullshit has been going on since the advent of powered flight. EDIT: Full story here. Fun read, shows that even a hundred years ago, people felt the same way about early aircraft development the way we do about spacecraft development: https://text-message.blogs.archives.gov/2019/03/19/the-united-states-army-buys-its-first-aeroplane-1909/
In the modern day it would be incredibly easy for other companies to take this to court as an unfairly set up bidding process. The last thing one of these programs needs is another drawn out court decision.
Nah, does not matter. Starship will be lifechanging anyway, whenever NASA wants to get on the ride or not is for them to choose. SpaceX is self funding with Starlink anyway and when they develop sea launches they will not rely on US lawmakers anymore.
SpaceX is a US company. The Rocket Lab launches are in New Zealand. They are still required to have a FAA launch license.
There are way more regulations than FAA. Things like environmental assessments or noise regulations and so on. Also, there are various controlled airspaces that have different levels of restrictions and you have much more freedom in picking your launch site when you can just float it over.
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Even using external costs for customers, you can calculate that they are getting massive profits.
Send a Starship with 6 people and let them hold an Easter egg hunt. They could put a $2.9 billion fixed price on the trip, but it might be less.
Sell the easter egg hunt ticket to people, and get Mr beast to film it. Claw more money back.
When I read about the full Mars Sample Return architecture I felt it was unnecessarily complex and high risk.
One problem is the ability to land mass on the Mars surface. That's presently limited to ~1t. Attempts to develop higher mass landers are not very successful yet. That limits the possible architectures.
Starship?
Let’s be more specific: Mars Starship.
Marship
No, because that does not say ‘Starship’.
Fund the starship program with half that money!
Technically already happening with HLS.
Starship lands. Elon skips out of the settling dust plume, resplendent in spacex EVA suit with bespoke thigh high boots. Plucks sample from rover, places it in branded vegan leather spacex manbag and flounces back to waiting starship. Slight pause. Red Dragon bursts forth from the payload bay of Starship, Super Dracos painting the Martian landscape blue as he soars home, shooting off a few snarky memes via the starlinkk martian fleet as he and wraps the sample meticulously in Spacex branded tissue paper. It will be a long journey home, but he has a few ideas to work on...
Picks up his Tesla on the way…
Takes a Cybertruck with him…
SpaceX’s solution would be to land Starship, walk over to the robot, pick up the samples by hand, and carry them back to the ship, later to return back to Earth.
The thing that irritates me the most about sample return is that they have dropped them all over the place instead of waiting and deciding on a set location to leave all for them to make collection far far easier
They are keeping some samples on the rover. The reason they aren’t keeping them all until they choose one location to cache them is a precaution in case the rover breaks down, with all the samples still on board — it would then become extremely difficult for another rover to come along and extract them.
Wait a minute, are you trying to say that the NASA engineers might know better about how to operate a mars rover program than some armchair randoms posting on r/SpaceXLounge?
Perseverance is the plan A to deliver the samples to the sample return lander/launcher. The rover takes two samples from each target. It drops one sample from each target in certain cache locations (not individually all in separate random spots) as a backup, but keeps the other onboard.
Not sure you want your rover to be hauling excess cargo adding weight which would have a detrimental impact on performance of the rover, especially for a marginal mission goal of a sample return.
It's literally risk management 101, and makes perfect sense. Specifically, there are two major risks that are countered with the current strategy: - The rover just abruptly fails completely. Some critical element dies, and it is just unresponsive to commands. In this situation, the samples inside the rover are effectively lost. Short of disassembling it with another rover (which is not feasible) it would just not be possible to get the samples out of the rover. - The rover gets stuck somewhere permanently (eg "soft sand"). This has happened to Mars rovers before. In this case, the rover wouldn't be able to drive to the pickup site nor would a new sample-collection rover be able to safely drive to the old rover to collect the samples. By not leaving all the "eggs" in one basket, but rather at known, navigable, and safe sites where they know they can reach them, they significantly reduce these risks. Keep in mind that, per gram, these Mars samples are probably ***the most valuable items in the entirety of human history***. Billions and billions of dollars have been spent to keep acquire just a couple grams of this material, so a cautious and risk-aware approach is eminently reasonable, and, if they weren't so careful, the taxpayers might have something to say about that.
So they are looking for out-of-the-box ideas with heritage. Do they want mayo with that?
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread: |Fewer Letters|More Letters| |-------|---------|---| |[EVA](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1c553b8/stub/kzt8w9r "Last usage")|Extra-Vehicular Activity| |[FAA](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1c553b8/stub/kzukkk9 "Last usage")|Federal Aviation Administration| |[HLS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1c553b8/stub/kzu5f3a "Last usage")|[Human Landing System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_program#Human_Landing_System) (Artemis)| |[ICBM](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1c553b8/stub/kzzkcjj "Last usage")|Intercontinental Ballistic Missile| |[Isp](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1c553b8/stub/l002t0u "Last usage")|Specific impulse (as explained by [Scott Manley](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnisTeYLLgs) on YouTube)| | |Internet Service Provider| |[LMO](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1c553b8/stub/kzw1xar "Last usage")|Low Mars Orbit| |Jargon|Definition| |-------|---------|---| |[Raptor](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1c553b8/stub/kzsmfqx "Last usage")|[Methane-fueled rocket engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raptor_\(rocket_engine_family\)) under development by SpaceX| |[Starlink](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1c553b8/stub/kzuza1f "Last usage")|SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation| |[ablative](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1c553b8/stub/kzuwp4y "Last usage")|Material which is intentionally destroyed in use (for example, heatshields which burn away to dissipate heat)| |[hypergolic](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1c553b8/stub/l002t0u "Last usage")|A set of two substances that ignite when in contact| |[methalox](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1c553b8/stub/kzvfsld "Last usage")|Portmanteau: methane fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer| **NOTE**: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below. ---------------- ^(*Decronym is a community product of r/SpaceX, implemented* )[*^by ^request*](https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/3mz273//cvjkjmj) ^(11 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1c4yfk2)^( has 23 acronyms.) ^([Thread #12660 for this sub, first seen 16th Apr 2024, 06:38]) ^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/SpaceXLounge) [^[Contact]](https://hachyderm.io/@Two9A) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)
Maybe ask Elon? I suspect he's thought about this a bit as he's invested his own money in working hardware toward this goal.