SpaceX Starship Crewed Mission to Mars: Animation

SpaceX Starship Crewed Mission to Mars: Animation

Landing on Mars: "Starship will enter Mars’ atmosphere at 7.5 kilometers per second and decelerate aerodynamically. The vehicle’s heat shield is designed to withstand multiple entries, but given that the vehicle is coming into Mars' atmosphere so hot, we still expect to see some ablation of the heat shield (similar to wear and tear on a brake pad)."

"Starship is essential to both SpaceX’s plans to deploy its next-generation Starship system as well as for NASA, which will use a lunar lander version of Starship for landing astronauts on the moon during the Artemis III mission through the Human Landing System (HLS) program."

SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket—collectively referred to as Starship—represent a fully reusable transportation system designed to carry both crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars and beyond. Starship will be the world’s most powerful launch vehicle ever developed, with the ability to carry up to 150 metric tonnes to Earth orbit reusable, and up to 250 metric tonnes expendable.

Key Starship Parameters:
Height: 120m/394ft
Diameter: 9m/29.5ft
Payload to LEO: 100 – 150t (fully reusable)

On-orbit Refilling
Starship leverages tanker vehicles (essentially the Starship spacecraft minus the windows) to refill the Starship spacecraft in low-Earth orbit prior to departing for Mars. Refilling on-orbit enables the transport of up to 100 tons all the way to Mars. And if the tanker ship has high reuse capability, the primary cost is just that of the oxygen and methane, which is extremely low.

Satellites: "Starship is designed to deliver satellites further and at a lower marginal cost per launch than our current Falcon vehicles. With a payload compartment larger than any fairing currently in operation or development, Starship creates possibilities for new missions, including space telescopes even larger than the James Webb."

Starship's Engines: Raptors

"The Raptor engine is a reusable methalox staged-combustion engine that powers the Starship launch system. Raptor engines began flight testing on the Starship prototype rockets in July 2019, becoming the first full-flow staged combustion rocket engine ever flown."

Raptor Engine Parameters:
Diameter: 1.3m/4ft
Height: 3.1m/10.2ft
Thrust: 230tf/500 klbf

First Lunar Private Mission
"Later this decade, Japanese entrepreneur Yusaku Maezawa and the crew of dearMoon will become the first civilian passengers on a lunar Starship mission, featuring a fly-by of the Moon during their week-long journey. This flight is an important step toward enabling access for people who dream of traveling to space."

Download the Free Starship User Guide (PDF):
https://www.spacex.com/media/starship_users_guide_v1.pdf

Image Credit: Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX)
Duration: 5 minutes
Image Date: April 10, 2023

 

#NASA #SpaceX #Space #Earth #Mars #Moon #MoonToMars #ArtemisProgram #ArtemisIII #Starship #Spacecraft #SuperHeavyRocket #ElonMusk #GwynneShotwell #Science #Technology #Engineering #HumanSpaceflight #CommercialSpace #HumanSpaceflight #SolarSystem #SpaceExploration #UnitedStates #STEM #Education #HD #Video