SpaceX will start launching Starships to Mars in 2026, Elon Musk says

[Unclear Engineer]

The Sky Crane is really a good idea for delivering an autonomous rover to the surface, because it puts it down gently and right-side-up, then gets away from the area so that it doesn't somehow foul the rover with its delivery system.

But, if there are already people on the surface that can go retrieve whatever is landing and reorient it as needed, then a much more simple system of drogues and cushioning would be cheaper and weigh less.

The technology to land softly with rockets is what is needed for human landings with vehicles that will launch back to orbit. So, the same sort of braking and hovering engineering used for the Sky Cranes will be what is needed for that. But, I don't expect that equipment to be single-use for that mission element.

 

[ChrisA]

For landings of people using craft that can relaunch into orbit, I don't think "disposable sky hook" type landers are an attractive option. So, the landers that carry crew between Mars orbit and the Martian surface are going to require some innovative thinking - and I agree that Musk and SpaceX are really good at that. For one-way deliveries of supplies from Earth to a Martian colony, I would not be surprised if the initial solution is disposable equipment between Mars orbit and the surface. Again, optimizing that, starting from Earth and figuring costs in fuel from planet surface to planet surface would be something for innovative thinking.

I agree that some kind of specialized Mars-orbit to Mars-surface and back vehicle is needed. But if you listen to Musk, he thinks otherwise and proposed to vertical land a Starship on Mars and then launch it back to Earth. In fact Starship is sized exactly for this. Yes it is wasteful and yes it would need to be refuled while on Mars and yes, if you attempted to launch from unprepared dirt rocks will bounce into the engines. But we must go on what Musk has said, not on what we think is best.

Actually it is plainly obvious because if the time line is only four years, he has no other lander in development so he must be intending to land the Starship that traveled from Eath.

Given the lack of fuel factories and launch towers on Mars, the crewed flights will be one-way trips. If they come home to Earrth it would be at least a decade later.

Those first crash landings will provide later crews with a nice supply of scrap metal. Later soft landing will provide the crew with supplies and equipment and they can even live inside the empty tanks.

I think it is possible, although optimistic to think he could do a one-way suicide trip in only a few years.

 

[ChrisA]

Wow, amazing. To me, this project by Musk justifies the existence of Billionaires. Well done Elon Musk America should be proud of you (I am sure they are). Imagination, ambition, execution and results - on our behalf (even us in the UK to celebrate a successful colony: The USA, lol) Like a reverse takeover how about adding a new state: UK (please, lol, anyone?)

But notice he never said the crew would return to Earth. The crew would have to hope that (1) one day some technology would be invented to enable a return to Earth and that (2) living in Mars 38% gravity is not harmful to the human body. and (3) they do not die of cancer because of the radiation. But the cancer risk is low. Being in deep space or on Mars is the same as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. Ony some people will die in their 50s. Others might last longer.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

The other side of this issue is that we are still trying to figure out if life ever evolved on Mars, and whether there is still some there, now.

Crashing a bunch of large rockets on the surface would require some extraordinary sterilization efforts to avoid contaminating the area that astronauts would later study. I am wondering if Musk is even considering that.

Science piggy-backing on one-way missions that are bound to produce messy habitats seems like an incompatibility.

So, I am suspecting that there will be some sort of upcoming "discussion" between Musk and the world's scientific community when the plans for a Mars colony start to look like they are becoming a realistic possibility.

Also, the "fail fast, learn and fix it" development process is fine when the infrastructure to do the "fixing" is close at hand. But, if you find that you need to fix something important on Mars, the ability to do the fixing is probably still going to be on Earth. That is why I think it makes more sense to do the learning processes to the extent possible on the Moon, rather than Mars.

Musk has already contracted to develop a lunar lander vehicle for NASA. In the past, landers used throw-away landing stages that protected the ascent stage rocket engines during landing and provided a launch platform for takeoff. Musk and Bezos are both considering reusable landers without throw-away landing stages for the Moon. What works there will probably work on Mars, but with more power and fuel capacity because of the greater gravity on Mars.

 

[Jiffy]

SpaceX plans to start launching uncrewed Mars missions with its Starship megarocket in 2026 and crewed flights to the Red Planet two years after that, Elon Musk said.

SpaceX will start launching Starships to Mars in 2026, Elon Musk says : Read more

The headline should be "Elon promises, yet again, that Starship will be going to Mars in 3Q of next year." And then it should read; "While SpaceX has yet to demonstrate a flawless test flight, that Starship engines can re-ignite in space, or how it will refuel on orbit, Elon posted a dubious statement about going to Mars in the next couple of years. This is the 4th (or 5th or 6th or...) time he has made such a statement."

 

[MikeMc]

I agree that some kind of specialized Mars-orbit to Mars-surface and back vehicle is needed. But if you listen to Musk, he thinks otherwise and proposed to vertical land a Starship on Mars and then launch it back to Earth. In fact Starship is sized exactly for this. Yes it is wasteful and yes it would need to be refuled while on Mars and yes, if you attempted to launch from unprepared dirt rocks will bounce into the engines. But we must go on what Musk has said, not on what we think is best.

Actually it is plainly obvious because if the time line is only four years, he has no other lander in development so he must be intending to land the Starship that traveled from Eath.

Given the lack of fuel factories and launch towers on Mars, the crewed flights will be one-way trips. If they come home to Earrth it would be at least a decade later.

Those first crash landings will provide later crews with a nice supply of scrap metal. Later soft landing will provide the crew with supplies and equipment and they can even live inside the empty tanks.

I think it is possible, although optimistic to think he could do a one-way suicide trip in only a few years.

I agree with everything you said except for the 3rd and 5th paragraph. Musk has very specifically said that they would not be one-way trips. He thinks that they can re-fuel on Mars by producing methane from airborne carbon dioxide. It doesn't sound very plausible, but I also thought that cars driving by themselves was implausible 10 years ago. I'm willing to give him a chance based on his track record. All of these other ideas that people are coming up with are too late. Musk has already made up his mind on how he wants to proceed. he intends on launching Starship to Mars and then land vertically, refuel, then relaunch to Earth. All of these other ideas that people have would only serve to delay the launch. Maybe that is their intention. They don't want him to launch to Mars, so they come up with all of these delay tactics like orbital this or nuclear that.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

Making methane fuel on Mars would require more than the CO2 in the atmosphere. It would require water, lots of energy, and substantial apparatus. That would need to at least be demonstrated before committing human lives to its successful operation on Mars. Probably possible in the future, but not for the first return flight. "Failing fast" on Mars could easily be fatal.

 

[George²]

but I also thought that cars driving by themselves was implausible 10 years ago.

You must be younger than me. Read history of self driven cars before you write such a puffed-up statement because that just "10 years ago self-driving cars were implausible."

 

[newtons_laws]

That is why I am thinking that any really acceptable plan calls for a Mars orbiter where interplanetary StarShips can dock and transfer people to Mars lander vehicles that are carrying enough fuel to launch from the surface back to the orbiter. If nothing else, that orbiter would need to be a huge refueling station to be able to supply fuel to both the Mars landers and probably to StarShips for the return flight to Earth.

With current technology, that is going to take a lot of fuel ferrying trips to Mars orbit to keep everything going. That is why NASA is looking at nuclear thermal propulsion for the interplanetary legs. I don't now if Musk will think about using nuclear rockets - that seems outside his box, for the moment, at least.

I agree. Whilst I think Starship would be useful for getting cargo to Mars when it comes to getting people there you want the journey time to be as short as possible, due to the health risks of a) prolonged weighlessness and b) cosmic and solar radiation during the voyage (once on Mars the radiation dose can be reduced by building shelters covered in Martian regolith). Which points to the advantages of using nuclear thermal propulsion for the human transportation part of the project.

 

[ChrisA]

I agree. Whilst I think Starship would be useful for getting cargo to Mars when it comes to getting people there you want the journey time to be as short as possible, due to the health risks of a) prolonged weighlessness and b) cosmic and solar radiation during the voyage (once on Mars the radiation dose can be reduced by building shelters covered in Martian regolith). Which points to the advantages of using nuclear thermal propulsion for the human transportation part of the project.

The above is correct but does not apply to Musk's plan to use Starship. In the far future, we might use a specialized and faster crew transit vehicle and a specialized lander vehicle and a Mars-orbit space station to house crew and store fuel. But today Musk proposes using the current Starship for all of those purposes. The plan is to launch a Starship, refuel it in low Earth orbit then send it on e one-way trip to Mars where it will attempt to land. Later he says he could but people on the ship. But it is not clear at all how or even if they would ever return to Earth.

Starship is best suited as a bulk-cargo vehicle, just what you need for sending supplies to a space station at Mars. But it is poor for all other uses.

But if you wait long enough robotics technology will be so good that there is no reason to send humans to space, except as tourists. This might be 20 years or 50 years but certainly by the end of this century, tourism will be the only reason to send people to space.

If this is all true then you NEED nuclear rockets because tourists will not go to Mars if it takes years for a round trip. The Moon will be popular but few people will be able to take two years off work for a trip to Mars.

 

[Gibsense]

But if you wait long enough robotics technology will be so good that there is no reason to send humans to space, except as tourists. This might be 20 years or 50 years but certainly by the end of this century, tourism will be the only reason to send people to space.

Agree Robots can replace us in that regard and possibly even allow us to experience as if there. But people don't necessarily need a logical reason to go anywhere just a wish

 

[Unclear Engineer]

Um, . . . if robots get as good as you envision, then maybe they can do all of the work here on Earth and humans can take 2year or longer vacations.

Predicting the future does not have a great track record. Things we did not anticipate seem to change the situation in unexpected ways.

 

[ChrisA]

Predicting the future does not have a great track record. Things we did not anticipate seem to change the situation in unexpected ways.

Yes, predictions are hard to get right the farther into the future you try to predict. So let's keep it to this decade...

Notice that even Elon Musk is not predicting being able to launch a Starship from the surface of Mars back to Earth. He has not even mentioned the possibility of returning the crew to Earth.

So as they leave Earth he has to say to them. "maybe within your lifetime we might perfect some technology to bring you all back home. Or maybe we don't do this. It is hard to predict how things will go."

 

[Unclear Engineer]

I am not going to even try to predict what Musk wants to do with the first human trip to Mars.

Nor would I try to predict if he can get a full crew of people who are actually qualified to agree to go.

The only fair criticism at this point is that StarShip is not likely to be able to return people from Mars to Earth with the designs we are currently seeing. But, even that is not a sure thing, depending on how much fuel is prestaged where to support a return flight, and how the vehicle(s) involved will really be designed.

And, what about SpaceX providing Mars "sample return" capabilities for NASA, instead of just putting humans on the surface?

There seems to be a lot of pessimistic extrapolation of what Musk has actually said, combined with a lot of optimistic schedule estimates from Musk. Reality might be quite different when plans are really being made with some constraints about what is possible at the time become apparent.

 

[SPCbubba]

Bwahaha!

Starship is not going to Mars in two years, and very likely never.

Starship is a colossal failure; a rocket with no viable mission and no capability to pursue any useful work. The Starship Artemis "project" is a taxpayer boondoggle that is little more than a make-work project for a group of American engineers and fabricators (not horrible, but still a waste of taxpayer money)

Far too many delusional Muskrats on this forum and website.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

If nothing else, StarShip can at least replace Artemis, and at this point seems likely to do so.

So, SPChubba's post seems like just more anti-Musk propaganda than interesting dialog for this forum.

 

[ChrisA]

If nothing else, StarShip can at least replace Artemis, and at this point seems likely to do so.

So, SPChubba's post seems like just more anti-Musk propaganda than interesting dialog for this forum.

No, Starship has some huge problems.

#1. There is no way to abort a launch, If anything goes wrong everyone dies. It will be really hard to get approval to launch people to space in Starship

#2 Starship can not leave low Earth orbnit until it is refueled in space and this requires 10 or 12 tanker flights. Any problem with weather at other launch site or a technical problem on any on the 11 or13 launches mess up the mission. The need to launch 13 ships to get one of them to the Moon is not good.

#3 All Starships to date have been empty shells with zero payload. Always with every mission the payloads are the hard part of the mission. Look at the current Mars Rover. It was a $4B project but only $250M was the launch cost. Also look at the lastest private trip using Dragon, again the mission specific prep cost more and took two years of work. The launch was as-usual $160M. Elon Musk is working on the easy part, the launch. Look at how long and how much money SpaceX spent to convert Cargo-Dagon to Crew-Dragon. Almost a decade and $2,5 billion dollars, just to add. crew to a working cargo ship. Today Starship is not even a working cargo ship. It can only carry its own fuel. Don't think that converting empty-starship to crew-starship will be faster or cheaper then the Dragon conversion.

Some day Starship might evolve into a usfull and working system but we are still VERY early in this project and I don't see any means of aborting a launch.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

ChrisA, You seem to not understand several things about development. As you said, current Starships are just shells. No sense testing risky new launch concepts with expensive payloads.

What the upper stage, above SuperHeavy, will be for future missions is not necessarily what you are calling "StarShip".

SuperHeavy can, indeed, lift super heavy things into low earth orbit. And that includes fuel with a tanker type upper stage designed for reentry and reuse. And, even if it requires 13 launches to fully fuel a "StarShip" to go farther, that would be done with a fleet of reusable SuperHeavy boosters and tanker upper stages, where, if one were to fail, another would be launched. So, it really isn't going to "mess up the mission" if there is one failure - but it will cost more money. Yes, I know that it is not yet clear how long methane fuel can be stored in an orbiting tank, but that will also probably evolve.

Looking at the SLS intended for Artemis, several things show that it is not superior to StarShip/SuperHeavy. For one thing, unlike the Apollo Project using the Saturn V, the SLS does not take its lunar lander with it as it launches from Earth or even as it transfers from LEO to lunar orbit. It counts on some version of "StarShip" to be its lander from lunar orbit. And, more importantly, it counts on all of those things you say are not going to really work out to get that version of StarShip into lunar orbit and keep putting fuel into it so that it can land on the Moon and take off and rendezvous with the Artemis capsule in lunar orbit multiple times. So for Artemis to succeed, StarShip (or something similar from Blue Origin) must succeed first.

Which brings us to the fundamental question: If SpaceX can put the lander required for Artemis into lunar orbit as it has contracted to do, why not just have SpaceX take the astronauts to the Moon from Earth and NASA SLS can just stay home?

The answer might seem to be the Artemis Orion capsule, which is designed for re-entry into Earth's atmosphere from a trans lunar orbit, at about 35,000 mph. But, why could SpaceX not simply also make a crew capsule? Or, why not have the translunar version of "StarShip" use fuel to brake into LEO and take a different vehicle down through the atmosphere?

It probably takes more total fuel to brake a returning translunar craft with rockets than using the atmospheric drag, even though the translunar craft could be lighter going and coming back if it was not a reentry vehicle. But, it is not clear to me that it would cost more. especially if the goal is multiple trips on fast turnarounds with the same vehicle.

And, don't forget that there may be rocket propellant made on the Moon at some point in the future.

So, in summary, if you think that StarShip has no future, it seems to logically follow that Artemis has no chance for success. And neither would the Chinese.

So, I think you are improperly discounting the expertise of the people working on these missions. (Well, maybe not the Artemis SLS missions.)

If the goal is to have a continuously crewed lunar base, the SpaceX approach seems the most logical to me.

Mars? That is a different story.

 

[Torbjorn Larsson]

The "quite soon" is no earlier than late November due to licensing issues (such as that the booster return doubles the sonic boom zone).

Some points to consider:

I am not expecting a successful StarShip landing on Mars by a launch in 2026! Maybe he could get a StarShip there in that time frame, but how does he intend to slow it down and land it? Mars' atmosphere is not nearly as dense as Earths, so braking by atmospheric drag is not going to be anything like an Earth reentry for StarShip.

The reentry profile is almost exactly like an Apollo reentry was, due to the similar Mars atmosphere vs Earth stratosphere pressures.

And, if the rich are not signing up in large numbers, how is a Mars colony going to be profitable in anything like the medium term, before it can become self-sustaining and produce profitable exports?

The estimates of willing colonizers that can afford the transfer, at the cost of a typical US home, should suffice. The "billionaire" stuff is a dud meme.

The economy of an exporting Mars society after the settling economy is dubious. It is not analogous to Earth colonies that were established because they knew they could export raw materials.

Perhaps exports such as software production and technology licensing will contribute to expand the colony economy, who knows!? But the potential colonizers don't seem to be bothered, and notably Earth does well without exporting to other planets.

He has one very hard problem with launching people to Mars. There is no way for them to return to Earth. After Starships lands on Mars, its fuel tanks will be empty. He will need (1) a fuel factory and storage depot on Mars so as to be able to refuel Starship and (2) a launch pad.

The current loose plans show robotic assembly of refueling plant and return pads. The return option will be there before humans are sent. But they seem to expect that few of the later colonizers will want to afford it.

I agree. Whilst I think Starship would be useful for getting cargo to Mars when it comes to getting people there you want the journey time to be as short as possible, due to the health risks of a) prolonged weighlessness and b) cosmic and solar radiation during the voyage (once on Mars the radiation dose can be reduced by building shelters covered in Martian regolith). Which points to the advantages of using nuclear thermal propulsion for the human transportation part of the project.

Like billionaires, the infinite improbability nuclear drive is a dud meme. The transport system is chemically driven.

The weightlessness of a 5-6 months Hohmann transfer is far shorter than the longest ISS stays, and after the 2-3 g descent the stay will be 1/3 Earth g gravity acceleration.

The cosmic ray exposure is not much different from ISS trips. It is mostly Earth atmosphere that shields. Away from the planet shield the douse will be roughly doubled, so they will incur some cancer risk in later life, like people who likes red meat or alcohol (or both).

For solar CMEs and wind - which is the harmful part that the crew can be exposed to - they will put the water tanks between Sun and crew.

They likely want to have ship recycling and prepared martian greenhouses before sending people as well, since they else will have a mass problem.

#1. There is no way to abort a launch, If anything goes wrong everyone dies. It will be really hard to get approval to launch people to space in Starship

#2 Starship can not leave low Earth orbnit until it is refueled in space and this requires 10 or 12 tanker flights.

There are not problems, these are features.

Consumer vehicles don't have clumsy and energy inefficient "abort" systems, specifically airplanes have never had useful such. (Parachuting from a crashing plane is not an option.) And the transport system is set up to approach airplane system safety. (If they get there is another question.) The most unsafe transportation where I live if you count time spent is city walks, cars hitting walkers means many orders of magnitude higher risk than airplane transport.

For most of the launch the Starship upper stage in effect serves as an accidental abort system, as they have already demonstrated (hot staging separation). Not a good one since it may fail an uncontrollable booster if all engines are on. But there is no way "there is no way to abort", since there is. (If it is approved is another question.)

 

[Torbjorn Larsson]

If the goal is to have a continuously crewed lunar base, the SpaceX approach seems the most logical to me.

But why??? And notably Artemis, which si a costly and time consuming detour if your stated goal is to go to Mars, won't provide continuous crew.

Colonization of Mars may happen before a continuous crewed lunar base (for whatever use you dream up to make a lunar base seem reasonable). That means of course that you have a reliable and densely trafficked transport system, like other colonization efforts. After the first planned missions it will be used as regular trip services - just don't forget your tooth brush (until Mars has a tooth brush factory)!

 

[Unclear Engineer]

The reentry profile is almost exactly like an Apollo reentry was, due to the similar Mars atmosphere vs Earth stratosphere pressures.

That is misleading.

First, StarShip is not a capsule like the Apollo capsule - it is a full rockets ship that does a "belly flop" through the stratosphere (and higher) using aerodynamic fins for attitude control, not just thrusters.

Second, StarShip will not use parachutes for its final descent to the ground, like space capsules do. It relies on its ability to use both aeronautical control surfaces and gimbaled rocket motors to orient itself to vertical position above the surface and then controls its vertical and horizontal position with the rocket motor thrust direction and thrust level.

On Earth landings, it has a target prearranged and only needs to hit it while vertical and at (nearly) zero vertical velocity. For an unprepared landing zone, it will probably need to hover, sense the ground conditions, and maneuver so as to set down at a location that does not have boulders, crevices, etc. that would cause tip-over when the engines cut off.

With the atmosphere much thinner, but the surface gravity much lower, there are minus and plus factors when compared to landing on Earth or the Moon. The point is that it will be different. I am not expecting the first attempt to be successful. Especially given SpaceX's development philosophy of trying something early and seeing how it fails. But, I am expecting success to be achieved, eventually, maybe even soon.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

Adding a little more info relevant to StarShip landings on Mars, see https://marsed.asu.edu/mep/atmosphere#:~:text=On Mars the surface pressure,45 kilometers (28 miles). for a description of the atmosphere, which at its surface is 6-to-7 millibars, roughly equivalent to Earth's atmospheric pressure at an altitude of 28 miles. But, it varies with altitude of the surface area a lot, In Hellas impact basin, 7.2 km (4.4 mi) below "sea level", the pressure there averages about 14 millibars, while on top of Olympus Mons, 22 km (14 mi) high, the pressure is only 0.7 millibar. And, it varies by season, too. Air pressure can change by 20%-to-30% seasonally.

Also, see

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5seefpjMQJI
for an animation of a StaShip landing on Mars, based on SpaceX current thinking. Note that the initial velocity is only 7.5 Km/sec, which is about 16,000 mph, a bit less than LEO orbital speed. That is a lot easier to deal with than 35,000 mph coming back from the Moon to Earth.

 

[ChrisA]

Elons estimate of "The price of a house" was done assuming the best possible case where the Starship is already built and will be reused and all you pay for is the fuel and that 100 people fit in the Starship.

But on a one way trip 100 do not fit in one Starship because each person needs to take with them all the housing, food air and water they will need for the rest of their lives. This means more then one Starship for each person. Yes you can grow food on Mars but you need to build a farm. Each person needs 2,000 kilocalories perday, every day. and this much food needs to be grown in a warm pressurized location with grow-lamps. The farm will be about 10X the size of the city although either of both could be multi-story

Yes more then one ship per person but not all at once, those supply ships will arrive every 26 months. At some point Musk will not be able to pay for this or he will grow old and die but SOMEONE needs to keep paying until the end of time.

Musk will need help for many other billionaires. Not only does each "settler" need multiple ships to haul him and the supplies he will need for the rest of his life, each of those ship requires 13 launches from Earth. So now to send 100 people you need 1,300 launches from Earth. Each "'settler" needs to somehow pay for 13 or more, maybe 20+ launches over his lifetime. Again that need for 2,000 Kcal of food per person per day is a big deal. The food needs about 20,000 kcal per day of sunlight energy and it must be radiation shielded, likely underground. I think we are talking about nuclear power as solr power would need panels with square area more than 2X that of the farm. because of the lower sunlight at Mars' orbit.

I am certain that a Starship could land on Mars. But it would likey not be able to launch because of (1) no fuel and(2) rocks on the ground flying up into the engines and causing damage like on test flight #1. They will need a landing pad and launch tower

 

[Unclear Engineer]

I think ChrisA is painting a rather bleak picture, based on current thinking. But, there is the probability of some innovations that could change that picture.

I think we really won't know the feasibility of a self-sustaining colony on Mars until we have had some experience trying to establish one on the Moon. I am hoping that SpaceX uses the Moon as its proving ground, rather than trying to head to Mars prematurely.

 

[George²]

And, don't forget that there may be rocket propellant made on the Moon at some point in the future.

It makes no sense in any way that scarce supplies of certain elements, and they are indeed scarce on the Moon, should be used to make rocket fuel. If we are talking about Mars, which is also not prosperous with the elements in question compared to Earth, there are still millions of times more carbon and hydrogen on Mars than on the Moon. So if one really needs to make (chemical) rocket fuel on any of these celestial bodies, Mars makes sense. On the moon, it would be a CRIMINAL waste of breathable, drinkable, and edible elements after helping edible plants grow.