Red Dragons on Mars?

[FurtiveFreddy]

SpaceX said:

Planning to send Dragon to Mars as soon as 2018. Red Dragons will inform overall Mars architecture, details to come

[scubadude]

I saw that earlier too, still wondering if he means just a flyby, orbit or landing... in all cases 2018 is Bl**dy soon considering they haven't even flown a Falcon9 Heavy yet- I guess they are making plans for all these 2nd hand 1st stages they're collecting :-)

However and whenever the Dragon capsule is a big old chunk to send that far, certainly larger than anything else that's been to Mars, I think only Cassini is equal in size/mass that's gone outward from earth?

[Eric Mc]

Ambition is something SpaceX isn't lacking.

[Flooble]

Maybe as someone else said they are looking at a Plan B if commercial customers demand too deep a discount on re-used Falcon 9s? Who will pay for a "Red Dragon" mission though - SpaceX themselves?

Although I'm sure I saw somewhere else that a single Falcon 9 won't work in a Falcon 9 Heavy stack. Definitely not the centre one but rework also needed for the two side boosters?

[Beati Dogu]

They clearly intend to land there.

https://twitter.com/SpaceX

Great name too.

Also:

https://imgur.com/kqCr2XL

Edited by Beati Dogu on Wednesday 27th April 20:59

[RobDickinson]

scubadude said:

I saw that earlier too, still wondering if he means just a flyby, orbit or landing... in all cases 2018 is Bl**dy soon considering they haven't even flown a Falcon9 Heavy yet- I guess they are making plans for all these 2nd hand 1st stages they're collecting :-)

However and whenever the Dragon capsule is a big old chunk to send that far, certainly larger than anything else that's been to Mars, I think only Cassini is equal in size/mass that's gone outward from earth?

Landing.

Most definitely landing.

In the words of Elon "Dragon 2 is designed to be able to land anywhere in the solar system. Red Dragon Mars mission is the first test flight."

Dragon 2 is about 6000kg's with a payload for Mars of 1000-1500kgs. Its too small for a manned mission, it also lacks the thrust to escape Mars by a fair way so ultimately it wont be used for any manned missions (though it could well do a moon landing). Its certainly the biggest thing planned to hit mars (one way or another).

This is proof of concept stuff really, then plan is to scape dragon 2 up to about 100 tons and have 10-12 people in it for a landing.

In other news NASA just had their budget cut by the Senate for Mars landing tests. Even with the budget NASA wasnt thinking of a manned Mars mission until 2035 or something!

[Flooble]

Would it not be logical to apply the same sort of incremental process as used elsewhere and have the first mission a fly-by, the second an orbit and the third a landing?

Or are the costs of the launch so great you may as well go straight to step three and hope for the best.

[Beati Dogu]

Might as well go all in and treat the entire mission as a dress rehearsal I guess.

[scubadude]

Flooble said:

Would it not be logical to apply the same sort of incremental process as used elsewhere and have the first mission a fly-by, the second an orbit and the third a landing?

Or are the costs of the launch so great you may as well go straight to step three and hope for the best.

Having thought about it I agree with the above.

SpaceX gain little value with a flypast or even an orbital insertion as both have been done repeatedly- their goal is landing so might as well Go in H.A.M. and attempt it. Much like their approach to 1st stage landing it may result in a spectacular failure but they don't seem to care about those and it makes for good Twitter posts :-)

I would be interested to know how much the claimed payload will be capable of as it will be landing in a "capsule". All the science landers are simply open, whereas Dragon is intended to be whole and sealed, perhaps they will jury rig the door and payload with a bungee and simply open the door and spit it out on landing!

Whatever and whenever it will be pretty jaw dropping, especially in the light of the government space agencies timelines for Mars.

[Eric Mc]

Inserting a craft into orbit around Mars can be just as difficult as landing something on the planet.

[Einion Yrth]

Eric Mc said:

Inserting a craft into orbit around Mars can be just as difficult as landing something on the planet.

I think you are going to need to justify that Eric; while by no means simple (technologically if not mathematically) orbital insertion seems to me to be orders of magnitude simpler than landing. Unless you are intending to aerobrake into orbit I suppose, in which case it becomes a tad more similar.

[Toaster]

Einion Yrth said:

I think you are going to need to justify that Eric; while by no means simple (technologically if not mathematically) orbital insertion seems to me to be orders of magnitude simpler than landing. Unless you are intending to aerobrake into orbit I suppose, in which case it becomes a tad more similar.

+1

[RobDickinson]

Aye, orbit vs landing isnt even close as far as I understand it. how many orbital insertions, anywhere, have we stuffed up?

I think just the Mars climate probe because someone in the USA couldnt figure metric.

[RobDickinson]

As for experiments, there was plan to have a drilling unit in the dragon and drill down through the capsule into mars.

NASA though will be on the back foot with this and I doubt they could get it ready in time.

[Caruso]

Beati Dogu said:

They clearly intend to land there.

https://twitter.com/SpaceX

Great name too.

Also:

https://imgur.com/kqCr2XL

Edited by Beati Dogu on Wednesday 27th April 20:59

That Imgur link was very interesting. They predict the Red Dragon will actually gain altitude during part of the glide phase of the EDL. It seems with enough velocity you can glide a 10 tonne gumdrop shape in less than 1% of Earth's atmosphere!

[Eric Mc]

The Apollo Command Module (and to a lesser extent, the Gemini spacecraft) was able to change its angle of descent aerodynamically by altering the angle at which it intercepted the upper atmosphere. It's called a "skip glide".

[Beati Dogu]

Caruso said:

That Imgur link was very interesting. They predict the Red Dragon will actually gain altitude during part of the glide phase of the EDL. It seems with enough velocity you can glide a 10 tonne gumdrop shape in less than 1% of Earth's atmosphere!

They're basically the slides from this presentation in 2014.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoSKHzziLKw

[Caruso]

I was looking at the beginning of the Spacex Launch Tuesday thread which started Jan 2015 with them hoping to land a rocket on a barge. 2 years and 4 months later they managed to pull it off.

Let's hope this thread goes the same way i.e. they manage to succeed at what from the outset looks like a very challenging mission.