SpaceX announced an audacious plan on Wednesday to land an approximately 6,000kg spacecraft on the surface of Mars. This simple declaration from the uber-popular rocket company drew a ton of questions from all quarters, and Ars spoke to a range of people across the space industry to get some answers. How big a milestone would this be? Can SpaceX do it? Is the plan realistic? And why does Rice play Texas, anyway? (OK, we didn't actually try to figure out that last one.)
Is this really a big deal?
Oh, heavens, yes. No private company has ever launched a significant, independently financed expedition into deep space, let alone all the way to Mars. In fact, only two world powers have ever softly landed spacecraft on Mars. The United States has done so half a dozen times, and the Soviet Union did it once with Mars 3 in 1971—although the vehicle failed after sending back just 15 seconds of data. And all previous soft landings have been relatively small and light; SpaceX is talking about landing a Dragon weighing about 6,000kg on the surface of Mars. The previous landing heavyweight was Curiosity, at 900kg. Soft-landing a 6,000kg object on Mars would be a stunning achievement for NASA or any government-backed space agency. For a private company, it's unheard of.
Can they do it?
Why not? In just the last six months, SpaceX has successfully launched and then recovered the first stages of multiple Falcon 9 rockets, first landing them on the ground and then later landing on an autonomous drone ship. SpaceX is known for making bold promises, and—eventually—delivering on them. However, the company has missed deadlines before, and making the 2018 launch window to Mars will be a real challenge.
What’s so challenging about the timeframe?
The 2018 launch presupposes that the company’s Falcon Heavy rocket will be ready to fly by 2018. That launch vehicle, capable of hefting 53 tons to low-Earth orbit (almost twice the ground-to-LEO payload capacity of the Space Shuttle), has already slipped in its development several times. SpaceX is now talking about a test flight by the end of this year, but there is low confidence in the launch industry that the company will make the deadline.
One reason for the delays may be complexity: Falcon Heavy combines three Falcon 9 core stages for a total of 27 engines. Nevertheless, when SpaceX gets the vehicle flying, Falcon Heavy's economy is tantalizing, slashing the cost of getting tons of cargo into space. If the vehicle isn’t ready for 2018, the launch would likely slip to 2020, when the next window for a fast transit to Mars opens.
If SpaceX gets the big rocket to work, then what?
Probably the biggest remaining hurdle would be planetary protection. Attorney Michael Listner, founder of Space Law and Policy Solutions, explained to Ars that Article IX of the Outer Space Treaty requires countries to ensure that launches from within their borders take precautionary measures to prevent contamination of other planets. If SpaceX can’t demonstrate that it's complying with the terms of the treaty with Red Dragon, decontaminating both the inside and outside of the vehicle, the Federal Aviation Administration could withhold a launch license. Phil Larson, a SpaceX official, said the company is working toward meeting the requirements. “SpaceX takes planetary protection seriously, and we are working with relevant NASA officials to ensure proper procedures are followed,” he told Ars.
Is SpaceX working with NASA, then?
NASA is providing advice and guidance to SpaceX through a Space Act Agreement. The agency and the company have been long-time partners through NASA’s commercial cargo and commercial crew programs, and this continued cooperation is an extension of that relationship. It's likely that NASA, with its assets in orbit around Mars, will help facilitate communication between the Red Dragon and Earth. But NASA is not providing any funds to support the effort to land a Dragon on Mars.
What’s in it for NASA?
Soft-landing on Mars is complicated because of the planet's extremely thin atmosphere. According to Tabatha Thompson, a spokeswoman for NASA, the agency is interested in potentially cribbing from whatever techniques SpaceX uses to slow and land the Red Dragon. “The collaboration offers NASA the potential flight technology demonstration of critical entry, descent, and landing for human exploration—particularly supersonic retro-propulsion—in the Mars atmosphere," Thompson explained. "SpaceX has sought NASA’s support because the agency has unique expertise in deep space exploration in areas such as deep space communication and navigation.” A successful mission may also open the door to future cooperation between SpaceX and NASA's aims to return soil samples from the surface of Mars.
How much will it cost?
SpaceX isn't saying. The Falcon Heavy list price for a launch is $135 million, and then there’s the cost of the Dragon spacecraft, the mission planning, executing and monitoring the flight, and any number of other factors. Industry sources speculate that the cost probably would be in the range of at $300 million to $500 million for a soup-to-nuts mission. That's just a guess, though—no hard numbers are available.
Why is SpaceX doing this?
Because Elon Musk wants to colonize Mars. As noted earlier, one of the most important first steps is figuring out how to land stuff on the red planet, which has a thin atmosphere and therefore doesn't provide a very effective medium for aerobraking. A spacecraft must attain a great velocity (and therefore invest a lot of energy) to reach Mars in six to nine months, and once it's there, it must then somehow shed that energy and slow down. Musk believes the upgraded Dragon 2 spacecraft will be able to use its eight SuperDraco engines to hammer away at its velocity and then land on Mars in a powered descent, similar to the way the Apollo Lunar Module landed on the moon. This too is technology NASA would be eager to see demonstrated.
But the only way to be sure is to give it a try without cargo or people. If this test works, Musk will have checked one of many boxes required to safely send humans to Mars.
Doesn’t NASA have plans to go to Mars, too?
Yes, NASA says it's on a Journey to Mars, although there is some skepticism in the aerospace community about how real that venture actually is. NASA is cooperating with SpaceX on its Red Dragon mission, but if SpaceX is successful, it could prove embarrassing for the space agency (though the real shame more appropriately lies with policymakers). NASA has spent nearly $20 billion on the Space Launch System rocket and Orion space capsule to date, and in the absolute best-case scenario will fly them around the Moon at the end of 2018. How would the public react if a private company can, largely on its own dime, develop nearly comparable vehicles and fly all the way to Mars in the same year?
But, again, can a private company really do this?
Ars put that question to Rick Tumlinson, an aerospace entrepreneur and de facto evangelist for the "New Space" movement—that cadre of young companies like SpaceX that are trying to break the mold of traditional aerospace. “We’re seeing a paradigm shift,” Tumlinson told us. “It’s like a roller coaster moment. You slowly get to the top, and you’re rolling along like we've been, and then all of a sudden it’s going to accelerate. What we’re seeing is the beginning of that with exploration.” Tumlinson argued that in 2016 the SpaceXs, the Blue Origins, and other new space companies are doing remarkable things in space.
If SpaceX succeeds, what comes next?
Like Musk, Tumlinson is one of the true believers in settlement on other worlds, and he thinks the true purpose of NASA and the nation’s space program should be to enable humans to move into the solar system. The Red Dragon mission would lay down a marker, he said. “Being able to demonstrate that you are capable of putting a spacecraft on Mars that is in the range of one needed to carry the first humans there—that is firing the first shot of a revolution that’s going to lead to the settlement of space," Tumlinson said. "Being able to show you can land that kind of spacecraft puts you on a track that people have to take seriously.”
In short, if Red Dragon does land, it validates Musk's vision of colonizing Mars. Keep your hands and feet inside the ride, because this roller coaster only gets faster from here.
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