Starship SN5 150m Hop May Happen Next Week!
SN5 static fire test and the next Starlink launch have been postponed a few days
Welcome space friends!
SpaceX, Starship and Perseverance
The Starship SN5 road closures now mention a possible 150m hop on July 13 to 15. That launch will require a successful static fire test first, so fingers crossed!
Both the Starship SN5 static fire test and the Falcon 9 Starlink launch that were originally scheduled for today have been postponed. The F9 launch cancellation was due to weather.
New road closures for the SN5 static test have been announced to begin on July 10. It looks like the next launch attempt for the F9 will also need to wait until at least July 10, but SpaceX hasn't confirmed a date yet.
The static fire test looks like it will include only a single Raptor engine.
NASA's Mars 2020 spacecraft, including the Perseverance rover, has been mounted to an Atlas rocket on the pad at Cape Canaveral. The launch window runs from July 30 to Aug 15, with landing in the Jezero Crater scheduled for Feb 18, 2021 (transit time of about 6 months). This rover has some wonderful cameras, so I'm excited about the upcoming visuals, as well as the science.
Construction activity at Boca Chica is continuing apace. The new High Bay for Super Heavy, in particular, is making good progress (Photo courtesy bocachicagal @ NSF).
When might the first commercial travel to Mars happen with Starship? Here's my current, optimistic schedule estimate (years marked in bold are the Mars launch windows):
2020: Suborbital and orbital test flights
2021: On-orbit automated docking & refueling
2022: Unmanned Moon orbit & return / 2 unmanned cargo flights to Mars
2023: “Dear Moon” Moon fly-by with ~10 to 12 passengers
2024: Unmanned Moon landing & return / 2 cargo & 2 crewed flights to Mars
2025: Propellant production on Mars
2026: First flights return from Mars
2028: First paid passenger flight departs for Mars
Getting Ready
Training to travel to Mars should include:
The effects of vacuum on both objects and living things
Ship, structure & suit puncture detection & sealing
Watching out for extreme cold, and how to protect yourself
Radiation awareness: everyday exposure, solar storms, radiation detectors, effect on electronics and your body
Zero-G & Low-G (Mars / Moon) simulations -- optional (Zero-G aircraft such as Novespace or a neutral buoyancy pool)
You should have several months to pack your gear. What should you take? I think a whole art and science is likely to develop around this. You will need supplies to last ~2 years on Mars, in addition to items for the trip itself. We can estimate a rough limit of about 500 kg for packed gear, plus another 400 kg for food, water air and other consumables that will be chosen and packed by SpaceX for you.
In terms of food and drinks, you should have menu choices and hot and cold options. Most foods will be pre-packaged in vacuum-sealed bags both to help preserve them and to help avoid the messy spillage from open containers that could happen in zero-G. Eventually, there might be some onboard hydroponics to provide fresh vegetables. However, the space needed to do that will be pretty limited, especially in the early days.
One way the packing process might work is that it could start with SpaceX sending several containers to your home by freight, about 90 days before departure. There would be several smaller ones for carry-ons, one large one for the bulk of your stuff, and a scale to weigh everything. Carry-ons will need to have enough gear for the full 3 to 7 month flight, so they won't be tiny. All of the containers would be made from a light-weight material, and would have a certain size and shape, anchor points and so on, to make it easy and fast to load them on Starship.
Exposure to vacuum can damage certain items, so it's likely that the cargo areas of the ship will be pressurized. Even so, transporting liquids in luggage may be prohibited or limited.
You take two months to load the containers, checking the weight as you go, to make sure you don't exceed the 500 kg maximum. Then a month before departure, SpaceX sends a freight company to pick almost everything up, and you bring one of your carry-ons with you when you fly or drive to the launch site.
Getting There
Before launch, you should be wearing your environment suit, and be buckled into a launch chair. The environment suit is mainly a safety precaution.
After launch, the Super Heavy booster will burn for only about 3 minutes. Then there will be a short pause for staging, followed by Starship burning for about 6 or 7 minutes to put the ship in low Earth orbit (appx 250 km altitude). During that time, acceleration will increase as the rocket burns its fuel and lightens the load. You can expect moderate vibration and a rough maximum of 3 to 5Gs.
Once in orbit, you'll be able to unbuckle and enjoy a view of Earth below as Starship orbits the planet once every 90 minutes.
Your Starship will need to be refueled before leaving Earth orbit for Mars. This process will require roughly five Super Heavy launches, each carrying another Starship that's filled with fuel rather than passengers. Each of those ships will then dock with your Starship and transfer fuel. We don't know yet exactly how long this process will take. In theory, it could be a matter of hours. In practice, especially in the early days, it could take a week or more.
Once the ship is refueled, you strap in again. Starship's engines will fire, and it's off to Mars!
What will the passenger areas of Starship look like? SpaceX hasn't said much along those lines, but we can make some educated guesses based on what we know about the ship's size and payload capacity, the number of passengers to be carried and the length of the trip. Here's a sketch of one possible layout, to be discussed in detail in future issues. In this design, there are 7 decks, labeled A to G from the bottom up:
