Red Dragon Options

[Paolo]

'Red Dragon' Mission Mulled as Cheap Search for Mars Life
any opinion on this? would it really make sense adapting a manned spaceship to unmanned Mars landing? I am skeptical...

if replying, please remember forum guideline 1.5

[AndyG]

...and 1.2, and 1.3!

I think the best thing we can say is that more affordable delivery costs are a great thing, and - if Musk's vision is as good as his demonstrations to date - then I suspect he'd get nothing but thumbs-up from all of us here.

Andy

[pospa]

Since payload capacity of Red Dragon to Mars surface would be couple of tons I see this concept quite suitable for MSR mission.
It could IMHO merge at least two separate missions: Sample Caching Rover and Sample Return Lander.
Don't you think?

[ugordan]

Since payload capacity of Red Dragon to Mars surface would be couple of tons I see this concept quite suitable for MSR mission.

Payload mass (i.e. launch vehicle performance) to Mars will be just one factor in MSR. A much bigger cost will be the actual spacecraft, as is usually the case. I don't see Red Dragon helping here. If a large mass is needed there, just using Falcon Heavy with a dedicated spacecraft would make more sense (coincidentally, MSR with one spacecraft was something Elon Musk suggested would be enabled by the Falcon Heavy).

This concept of using Dragon to land something on Mars is interesting but it does have drawbacks. A big chunk of the landed mass would be Dragon itself and its (for unmanned landers) unnecessary pressurized structure. It also remains to be seen if a Dragon could actually perform a successful EDL in the first place.

[Greg Hullender]

Treating Dragon strictly as an unmanned vehicle, it's hard to see what it brings to the party. Unless they seriously thought they could easily adjust the design to let it land on Mars. But if it were that easy, would MSL being using the sky crane?

--Greg

[ElkGroveDan]

My recollection from the earliest days of SpaceX has been that the Dragon has always been intended as a multi-use capsule for cargo, science payloads, and ultimately self-aware biological payloads. I'm not going to get into the myriad ways a constant like the Dragon can save costs, but in many ways it is like the common automobile chassis that many manufacturers have successful used on different vehicles over the years (especially trucks), or the standard motherboard and BUS arrangement of modern PCs that has allowed for an explosion of critical innovation around a reliable manufacturing platform. That the Dragon is being considered as a vessel for unmanned Mars missions should come as no surprise then, since the origins of Elon Musk's interest in space are rooted in a desire to explore Mars.

(Have I mentioned, that I really like this guy and what he's doing? )

[djellison]

A big chunk of the landed mass would be Dragon itself and its (for unmanned landers) unnecessary pressurized structure.

The point being, when the LV can lift so much weight - then you can get away with 'wasted' mass.

The thing we have the least of, is money. If a system like this gets instrumentation onto the ground at <$ than, say, 'traditional' spacecraft design and LV's.... then it's a win.

[Jim from NSF.com]

Full inline quote removed - ADMIN


No, the capsule is still a fixed size and it is a pressurized structure meant to contain personnel and loose cargo. It is ill suited to contain a rover or instrument suite such as Phoenix. All previous landers jettisoned their heat shield to expose the spacecraft, Dragon can't do this and if it could, it would expose a sealed vessel.

[ElkGroveDan]

The Viking landers and MSL wouldn't fit in it either so it must be a bad idea. Clearly Musk and all of his engineers have lost their minds. With that kind of thinking they'll never get any rocket off the ground.

[djellison]

No, the capsule is still a fixed size and it is a pressurized structure meant to contain personnel and loose cargo. It is ill suited to contain a rover or instrument suite such as Phoenix. All previous landers jettisoned their heat shield to expose the spacecraft, Dragon can't do this and if it could, it would expose a sealed vessel.

You're thinking 'how would dragon deliver Phoenix'. That's not the goal here. It's a change in philosophy.

The actual question is - what science could you do with a Dragon on the surface.

One scientist, at least, clearly thinks there is plenty that can be done.

I can see massive potential for Dragon as depicted in that video - and even more with comparatively simple modifications to the vehicle structure.

[Jim from NSF.com]

You're thinking 'how would dragon deliver Phoenix'.

No, I was thinking how Dragon could deliver Phoenix's instruments.
Scientists will compromise everything for a free ride.
There are no simple mods to the structure. Look at the recovered Dragon, the only place for instruments is in the interior. They would have extend through the two hatches.

Any other mods and it is not a Dragon anymore.

[djellison]

No, I was thinking how Dragon could deliver Phoenix's instruments.

Again - still the wrong mind set.

[Jim from NSF.com]

Again - still the wrong mind set.

Huh? So the "right mind set" is not to deliver instruments and just land a Dragon capsule.

Ok, I will go back to lurking and let the spacecraft "experts" state their "qualified" opinions based on their experience this field.

[djellison]

Huh? So the "right mind set" is not to deliver instruments and just land a Dragon capsule.

Very very obviously, that is NOT the point I was making. You really are very very determined to start an argument rather than have a discussion, aren't you.

Ok, I will go back to lurking

Please do.

[ZLD]

Just out of curiosity, are there any obvious applications of the Dragon module? I can envision some instruments getting deployed through the hatch in some manner. I'm having trouble thinking of any other method of delivering instruments with the craft without serious modification though. Also, very large parachutes will be necessary to slow the craft; is there anything in the works for a booster module to help slow during decent? I really like this idea and I think it shows, if not just for good PR from the science community, an actual interest from SpaceX in delivering more than just people to space.

[nprev]

If I'm not mistaken, I think that Red Dragon would probably utilize a combination of parachutes & a powered descent system of some sort.

It could well be a nice landing system for Mars, actually. I could see a couple of intermediate-sized rovers popping out of the hatch down a ramp...followed by an antenna. You could stuff all kinds of DTE comm gear, meteorological instruments, etc. in all that space as well!

[ZLD]

a couple of intermediate-sized rovers popping out of the hatch down a ramp

That was actually my first thought as well; possibly even updated Pathfinder rovers, to minimize costs.

[Jim from NSF.com]

Very very obviously, that is NOT the point I was making. You really are very very determined to start an argument rather than have a discussion, aren't you.

Then state your point because you haven't revealed andI know my mind set and it is not wrong.

The Dragon is a poor design to deliver any but people and goods. Same thing would apply to the Orion capsule or CST-100. They are structurally wrong for other tasks. They are designed to contain their payloads.

Driving rovers out the hatch is ludicrous, the hatch is small and high off the surface.

[nprev]

Jim, one point you have to remember about Red Dragon and SpaceX's general mindset: The objective here is to demonstrate the ability to land, uh, biological things on Mars someday. Their vested interest is to develop this capability. Test flight(s) towards that end would be a waste to do using mass simulators; why not take even somewhat kludged-together instrumentation & do some science?

"Kludged-together" might well be an unjust characterization, actually. I don't think that the constraints introduced by preserving the design of the root Dragon system in Red Dragon are insurmountable barriers at all to truly innovative thinking & design.

[ZLD]

Driving rovers out the hatch is ludicrous, the hatch is small and high off the surface.

Hastiness aside, I think some type of inflatable ramp could be used such as those found on airplanes like this one, sans the mouthbreathers of course.

[djellison]

Driving rovers out the hatch is ludicrous, the hatch is small and high off the surface.

And yet again, Jim, you argue against something I've not proposed. I didn't propose delivering PHX's instruments. I didn't propose driving a rover out of the door. Yet you decided to have an argument with me about such things.

I have made my point - and made it clearly. The issue is not how to deliver payloads previously sent to Mars with Dragon. It's what payloads could you send to Mars with Dragon. You continue to ignore that simple statement and start arguments over things I've not said or even inferred.

ADMIN MODE:
Consider this a public administrator warning Jim - stop trying to start arguments with people. This has been an ongoing problem with you over the years. Your attitude continues to be mutually exclusive with that of constructive discussion. Your behavior is confrontational and rude, and this is not just my opinion, but that of many of the admin team and other UMSF members as well.

Might I suggest you do as promised and go back to lurking. Further posting in this manor, and we'll simply suspend your account.

Again.

[centsworth_II]

...some type of inflatable ramp...

And the rover would not have to drive down the ramp, it could be folded into a ball like a MER within its balloon cocoon. The Balled rover could roll down the ramp and then unfold and stand up.

[nprev]

Yep; many ways to skin that cat. You could even push it out the hatch & let it bounce around.

And that's just off the tops of the heads of us amateurs. Pros could do things that would make our eyes pop out, surely.

[centsworth_II]

...You could even push it out the hatch & let it bounce around....

Right! Forget about the ramp.

[ZLD]

Kind of like the tumbleweed idea thats been floated for a while now? That could definitely be interesting, especially if they packed the entire craft full (10 m^3 worth!).

[centsworth_II]

Kind of like the tumbleweed idea...

I'd say this proposal is ready to write up!

[DDAVIS]

I would have cameras at least pointing out the windows and recording full frame rate HD video of the landing and the later view outside under changing lighting conditions. If possible a group of cameras would be at the apex of the lander exposed after landing by a movable cover to provide a panoramic view of the landscape and skies. I imagine several dedicated panorama cameras pre set to make a 360 degree mosaic. A fisheye all sky camera with some tilt capability would be above the middle of this camera 'ring' to image clouds, etc at variable resolution. 4K resolution color 'all skies' would be obtained in time lapse mode to show the sky and a 'slice' of the scenery. Modern planetarium video theaters can reproduce such a view in a dome projection for specialist and general audiences. Such sequences would take time to send back, but that's what I would try to do.

[djellison]

You sound like Mike Wolff. In a good way.

Top hatch could become deployables for cameras, comms and power.

A 4k sky-cam is more of a downlink constraint rather than a enabled-by-dragon constraint though.

[ElkGroveDan]

Think of the weather station and seismometer you could install with that much space and payload.

[Astro0]

Of course thinking outside the box or in this case the capsule, who says that anything needs to be deployed from "inside" once you've landed.

With, I would think, small modifications to the vehicle, you could house a series of deployable containers that are released from the main fuselage during the last part of the descent. Possibly released through opened hatches or ejected compartments (like segments of an orange).
These individual components could then parchute (or parachute+bounce) to the surface over a wider area.

Think of the way that MSL's backshell and heatshield will drop off those weights during descent.

I imagine that during a parchute+powered descent by Red Dragon the descent velocity would be relatively low at the time you would 'deploy' these science containers which could house remote sensing gear, rovers, tumbleweeds etc and all of their data relayed back (intranet-style) to the main descent vehicle for store/relay back to Earth. The main lander has a stack of cameras and carries the prime communication gear (as backup, smaller UHF links on the components for bent-pipe relay via orbiting spacecraft).

Just about anything is possible here, after all, most of this conversation is based on a capsule that hasn't been finally designed or built to do the job of going to and landing on Mars. All we have is an idea, a video (so I'm told), a graphic and thankfully a whole bunch of people here with some imagination and an interest in exploration.

[ugordan]

Also, very large parachutes will be necessary to slow the craft; is there anything in the works for a booster module to help slow during decent?

The abort thrusters now being developed for uh... not-unmanned flights are envisioned to (at some point later) also serve for propulsive landing capability. See this video at about 1 minute mark. I'd think the parachutes would be pretty useless on Mars for such a big capsule (over 4 tons dry mass without propellant load) and propulsive landing would be the primary means of shedding the remaining velocity after entry. I'm not sure they'd deploy correctly in the first place, IIRC, they'd deploy at supersonic speeds on Mars and they deploy subsonically on Earth, after two drogues stabilize the capsule.

[pospa]

We are talking about Discovery category mission, right?
It should/must be cheap.
It's nice that many of you are suggesting minirovers and tumbleweeds rolling or jumping out of Red Dragon (RD), but why not just stick to that concept NASA Ames if thinking about.
RD will stay mostly in the standard shape or configuration as it will be that time for other unmanned missions in order to keep lander price low as much as possible.
Number of external moving tool(s)/instrument(s) would be very limited just to the sampling acquisition set -> 1 m drilling suite + camera(s) on the robotic arm sticking out of standard side hatch.
Then all other lab instruments (many and heavy) can do a lot of science by analysing samples inside of the RD capsule.
Of course meteo instruments and other cameras can be deployed through top hatch together with Ultraflex solar arrays and antena(s).
And perhaps some cheap seismometric penetrator(s) could be simply ejected during EDL phase as well.

[Drkskywxlt]

Although I think this proposed proposal (how's that for redundancy?) would certainly win high marks in the "cool and awesome" category that would make it great for EPO, it has to compete against the other Discovery proposals in two areas: science return and risk.

Mounting cameras on the outside to just take some panoramic pictures certainly won't scientifically wow the review panel. Adding some seismic sensors and weather sensors might make it more interesting, but then basically you've made Red Dragon into a very heavy version of GEMS. Which brings me to:

Risk. GEMS apparently won high marks for being low-risk. Although I'm sure Elon Musk and SpaceX would argue that Red Dragon would not be high risk, I think it would be very hard to convince a risk averse NASA review panel of that fact. Any new technology is always viewed as riskier than proven technology. I think the Red Dragon team would really have to wow the review panel with some amazing science to overcome their risk.

Chris McKay and Elon Musk are smart guys though, so I'm sure they could pull it off if anybody could. I'd be rooting for it

[algorimancer]

...why not just stick to that concept NASA Ames if thinking about.

Possibly because, after experiencing Pathfinder and MER in comparison to Viking and Phoenix, we've learned to appreciate the dramatic returns a rover can deliver. It need not be a very large rover. I could easily envision a pneumatic "mortar" that rapidly pops several small rovers through the hatch which could explore the local region at least out to line-of-sight (hundreds of meters to kilometers, given a tall antenna), communicating with the dragon vehicle as with Pathfinder. Really not that difficult to do.

[Mongo]

For a Mars mission, there are two kinds of distance to be traversed. All the previous missions that moved beyond the immediate landing spot have been rovers that moved to various locations on the Martian surface. But a mission could also take samples vertically, by means of a drill.

So if a drill could be extended out of the main hatch, it might be able to extract cores at various depths to be analysed by the huge mass of lab instrumentation on board the Red Dragon. The mission would examine a smaller number of samples, but with far greater depth of analysis.

I am thinking along the lines of the NASA Ames proposal, which does seem to me to have the greatest scientific return using Red Dragon.

[djellison]

It's not out of the question that the vehicle could hold in reserve enough fuel to hop to a different site as well.

[Mongo]

I had a wild idea, does anybody know if it is technically feasible?

Instead of extending a drill mechanism out of the main hatch, would it be possible to simply drill straight down right through the heat shield? This drill would, after all, be built to drill through solid rock, and I believe that the material that heat shields are made of is designed for heat resistance/ablation, not rock-like strength, in fact they are quite fragile as I understand it. Or alternatively, perhaps the shield could incorporate a small 'cap' directly below the base of the internal drill mechanism, that can be removed upon landing. (It might be simpler and less problematic to simply drill right through the heat shield, though.)

If the drill is not required to be physically extended out the main hatch by some kind of robot arm, the mass and volume saved by not including the required arm mechanism could be used for additional instrumentation, not to mention that it would be a lot easier to extract the drill cores to the interior of the Red Dragon.

[ZLD]

Drilling through the bottom is a possibility, as its a low density carbon material but I'm not sure about placing a hatch on the underside of the craft. At that point, you are adding a lot more cost in redesigning and testing for the capsule.

Another idea they could do, is land multiple capsules at various locations around the planet that have large, steerable, parabolic antennas, similar to that on Galileo/TDRS, that would be deployed out of the top. Could be useful as a second relay station in space, or maybe radio telescope investigations with more distance from the Sun, or possibly with some magic, interferometric observations between here and there.

Including a mortar loaded with something similar to MetNet impactors could also be interesting though, shooting them out in different directions during descent.

[Fran Ontanaya]

It may be robust enough to survive a winter buried in CO2. Then a snow rover could just roll out the hatch.

[lyford]

Delurking in this thread just long enough to say HOORAY that other folks are fans of the Tumbleweed rovers! We may get rolling yet!

[MarsInMyLifetime]

I'm new to UMSF, but a long-time advocate of robotic missions. The premise of this thread is not unlike the problem handed down to American engineers and scientists right after WWII: "Folks, we have a bunch of V-2s here. What kind of science can you do with something made for an entirely different use?" First steps were crude, but the variety of science eventually done was outstanding--for a war missile.

I'd modify some things in the uncrewed version of Dragon to make it more Mars-mission worthy: replace the heat shield with a Viking-class conic shield (physics and success of the design dictate using what works); cut away the heat shield for landing--no need to soft land that mass; remove the Earth-style parachutes from the lower bays and instead have an MSL-class parachute system in a new nose bay filling the formerly empty nose cone volume; remove the vestigial forward hatch and ISS docking system and use the space to store and unfold 6 round solar arrays for power akin to those on Beagle (the central platform would hold antennae and instruments like mastcams and lidar); replace the pressure vessel sides with ribs to reduce some weight without compromising the aeroshell; use the landing leg tubes to guide sampling drills on telescoping shafts to the surface; with the heat shield gone, open a trap door hinged on one side as a ramp to the surface for mobile exploration tools (moles, Pathfinder-class bots, or even tumbleweeds if you must); utilize the deployed sensor bay as a weather station and lower-level camera platform. And the remaining space (of which there is still plenty in that huge hull) could be for what I think is the most valuable primary payload: testing the various IRSU technologies for water and fuel production out of the atmosphere.

I recall, though, that the V-2 was replaced by cheaper, more efficient sounding rockets for all the science roles that it pioneered, and I suspect this modified Dragon, even if gifted on the science community, might quickly go the same route!
--
Don (MarsInMyLifetime)

[ugordan]

I'm new to UMSF, but a long-time advocate of robotic missions. The premise of this thread is not unlike the problem handed down to American engineers and replace the heat shield with a Viking-class conic shield (physics and success of the design dictate using what works);

Why? What's to say that's the only design that works? Even circumlunar flight reentries were proven out by different capsule shapes, both Apollo and Zond (which Dragon is more similar to).

I don't think either replacing the hatch or modifying the pressurized hull structure would work. You're approaching a lander development program and not reusing the Dragon design so the whole point gets lost. That becomes a Dragon only by name, besides what's the point in reducing the mass if Falcon Heavy can launch more mass to Mars than any useful scientific payload you can put inside Red Dragon?

[MarsInMyLifetime]

...You're approaching a lander development program and not reusing the Dragon design so the whole point gets lost. That becomes a Dragon only by name, besides what's the point in reducing the mass if Falcon Heavy can launch more mass to Mars than any useful scientific payload you can put inside Red Dragon?

Granted, but once that mass gets to the vicinity of Mars, the devil is in getting it to the surface successfully. These were just changes I needed to envision for the EDL preliminaries in order to make the game work for me. I'm on the surface now, somehow, and in the payload mode. I'll still stick with the IRSU demonstration packages for initial payloads--methane generation first, then water purification. I'd still put station-keeping science (mastcam, weather sensors, and comms) on the top in place of the docking adapter.

[Jim from NSF.com]

OfJust about anything is possible here, after all, most of this conversation is based on a capsule that hasn't been finally designed or built to do the job of going to and landing on Mars. All we have is an idea, a video (so I'm told), a graphic and thankfully a whole bunch of people here with some imagination and an interest in exploration.

No, it has been designed and built. Red Dragon is the existing Dragon

[Jim from NSF.com]

And yet again, Jim, you argue against something I've not proposed. I didn't propose delivering PHX's instruments. I didn't propose driving a rover out of the door. Yet you decided to have an argument with me about such things.

I have made my point - and made it clearly. The issue is not how to deliver payloads previously sent to Mars with Dragon. It's what payloads could you send to Mars with Dragon. You continue to ignore that simple statement and start arguments over things I've not said or even inferred.

I am going to blow my wad on this. I am not talking about previous instruments but any type of one. Dragon is a bad platform. The ideas since your post demonstrate that it is. Most are non viable.

Ideas modifying the structure are non starters. It isn't a dragon the. Opening hatches, non starter again, the avionics are not designed for vacuum.

There is out of the box thinking and then there is off the reservation which most of the ideas are.

[Fran Ontanaya]

Maybe it could orbit Mars, mapping with a big gamma ray spectrometer, then do the landing demo and use some extra instruments. The GRS could collect data about the capsule shielding too.

[ZLD]

]There is out of the box thinking and then there is off the reservation which most of the ideas are.

Jim, I honestly don't understand your line of thought here. How is using the Dragon module an impossibility for an unmanned mission to Mars? Are you a qualified engineer, able to determine this as a certainty? As I've read, most of the ideas tossed around here, have been at least somewhat reasonable for inclusion on a Red Dragon mission. Would you care to address why they are unreasonable on an individual basis, rather that offering a blanket statement? It just seems you are opposed to the idea of the mission without offering any further thought or discussion on the matter.

[Greg Hullender]

I hate to appear to agree with Jim, but I'm just not seeing how the thing can land on Mars at all without big modifications. Is there a paper where some of the Dragon engineers worked through this?

--Greg

[stevesliva]

On the other hand, NASA also has a history of designing a platform and then figuring out what science might fit it, too. Not so much on the unmanned side, which might be why it seems to radical to propose a mission w/o mission objectives.

[ElkGroveDan]

Jim, I honestly don't understand your line of thought here. How is using the Dragon module an impossibility for an unmanned mission to Mars? Are you a qualified engineer, able to determine this as a certainty?

No Jim isn't an engineer. But he does have conflict of interest issues in opposing SpaceX and the Falcon rockets. So take his criticisms at face value.

[nprev]

"A solar-powered rover lasting for over seven terrestrial years on Mars??? Ridiculous!!! Can't be done!!! It would have to rove FAR off the reservation!"

Yeah, Jim, c'mon...enough already. REAL easy to belittle, so very much more difficult to imagine & innovate, after all.

Engineering is the art of making apparent miracles come true by thinking of ways to not only perform within constraints, but so often & predictably transcend them.

I must also add that ZLD's observations are correct: Blanket criticism is entirely unproductive in the concept development phase of ANY project, where any idea, no matter how apparently wild, must be heard and evaluated on its individual merits. You have made no real attempt to do so, and in fact your comments would act to stifle creative thinking in an actual developmental environment.

Any engineer...in fact,, any person with a modicum of creative capacity...understands this obvious fact instinctively. You clearly either do not, or refuse to do so for your own reasons. Neither reason supports your argument.

[djellison]

Jim has been asked, in private, and publicly, by UMSF admins, to behave in a cordial manor.

He has refused to do so, repeatedly. His time here is done.

I suggest we just ignore his comments and move on.

[SteveM]

"The idea is like grass,
It craves light, likes crowds,
thrives on crossbreeding,
grows better for being stepped on."

Ursula K. LeGuin

[Drkskywxlt]

I think people have posted several ideas of how SOME science could get done with a Dragon, but I don't think any of that science is compelling enough to outweigh the great risk of trying to land a very large unproven system on Mars. Dragon is simply not optimized for unmanned robotic science missions...really no great surprise there. Still, if anyone can sell this, Chris McKay and Elon Musk can.

[Astro0]

"...but I don't think any of that science is compelling enough to outweigh the great risk of trying to land a very large unproven system on Mars."

Oh well, better not send Curiosity to land on Mars using Skycrane then!

[Guest_Oersted_*]

I imagine a snake crawling out of the hatch...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VLjDjXzTiU

Or maybe a flying tadpole:

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2...-flight-testing

- Would be cool to have such a relatively low-cost delivery system to Mars one day!

[Drkskywxlt]

Oh well, better not send Curiosity to land on Mars using Skycrane then!

Don't remind me...

[Syrinx]

It might be worth simply emailing Elon Musk and asking him to comment. He's not 8 levels high in a government bureaucracy. He's just like the majority of us on UMSF (gear heads), except he's got more money and toys. Or at least more than me. I don't know how much you guys are worth.

[Paolo]

there is an article on Red Dragon on this week's Nature:
Dragon offers ticket to Mars

[Drkskywxlt]

Usually teams that are proposing Discovery or NF missions keep the details pretty close to the vest. Interesting that the Red Dragon team is doing almost the exact opposite and advertising this mission a couple years even before the next Discovery AO is released.

[Phil Stooke]

True! But nobody else is likely to steal this idea.

Phil

[djellison]

Usually teams that are proposing Discovery or NF missions keep the details pretty close to the vest. Interesting that the Red Dragon team is doing almost the exact opposite and advertising this mission a couple years even before the next Discovery AO is released.

Dragon is a platform, not a specific mission proposal.

[vjkane]

ADMIN - Full inline quote removed. You should know better, you've been here long enough.


According to the press accounts, Chris McKay (with Ames?) will propose Red Dragon for the next Discovery selection for a mission to sample the high latitude subsurface ice. SpaceX would be the industrial partner.

Sometimes, proposing groups are fairly open with at least some aspects of their proposals as the TIME and AVIATr teams were. In this case there is a unique resource, the Red Dragon, design that other teams can't copy so getting reviewers used to a 'radical' idea may be a good idea.

[djellison]

And someone else could also propose a Red Dragon platformed mission as a discovery mission. It's not significantly different to details of launch vehicles being available. The point remains - it's a platform, not a proposal.

[Drkskywxlt]

Dragon is a platform, Red Dragon is a specific mission proposal. From what little information is available, I don't think SpaceX has said they are going to modify the engineering of the Dragon capsule for this mission, beyond what is obviously required to acquire science data. If Red Dragon was just the platform, then it would make no sense why Chris McKay and his colleagues would already be involved (and talking about it!) with a specific mission proposal (specifically, this polar drill idea). I suppose SpaceX could consider partnering with another group of scientists for a different mission utilizing Dragon.

[djellison]

I suppose SpaceX could consider partnering with another group of scientists for a different mission utilizing Dragon.

Let's send a Dragon capsule. What science can it do? Nothing. It's an empty box.

NOW - let's put some science in it - NOW let's send it. NOW....we have a mission.

McKay is proposing one such payload for it. Someone else could propose a different payload.

Red Dragon is a box. It's up to scientists to put something it it. McKay is one such scientist proposing a contents for that box.

[nprev]

Well, let's redirect by all means, then!

Anybody got the scoop on the proposed analytical lab? Seems like it's designed to find complex organics, specifically DNA. I am remarkably ingnorant of organic chemistry; how would this work?

I didn't think that a GCMS was capable of identifying complex molecules with any degree of precision, but I suppose the technology has probably advanced considerably since the Viking days...

[vjkane]

Anybody got the scoop on the proposed analytical lab? Seems like it's designed to find complex organics, specifically DNA. I am remarkably ingnorant of organic chemistry; how would this work?

The ExoMars rover payload is pretty advanced for finding and analyzing organics. Various papers are presented at conferences on possible instruments. Don't know how much can be afforded on a Discovery budget. Generally after the spacecraft, money is tight for instruments, which is one reason that several Discovery missions have flown with a large percentage of instruments paid for by foreign governments.

[Drkskywxlt]

I would definitely expect foreign instruments (or donated instruments) were something like this to fly. The amount of payload that a Discovery budget could afford would be well below the payload capacity of a Dragon capsule.

[nprev]

Hmm. All that terrific payload capacity...

What do you think the odds would be of allowing ride-along payloads sponsored by various universities and perhaps organizations like TPS in addition to the core payload? It would be a shame to waste a single gram or CC of capacity (within ample safety margins, of course).

Bad parts of that idea: Increased integration complexity & possibly problems complying with PPP requirements.

[ngunn]

Sometimes, this place...I wonder why I bothered.

Don't ever wonder that. The question answers itself.

I don't see everything you do of course, but I've noticed that most of your recent posts take the form of rebuttals of one kind or another. Exasperation is the word that comes to mind. Perhaps that's unavoidable, but please don't give up!

[Paolo]

this presentation of Red Dragon has been posted on the NASA spaceflight forum
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php...0;attach=343334

Admin Note: Link above is to a 2.68mb PDF file

[Mongo]

From Emily's Planetary Society blog:

Moving on to new ideas, here's VP Kris Zacny showing off a huge drill for Mars subsurface sample acquisition. They have field-tested it in Antarctica (working with Chris McKay), and they have tricky ways of delivering samples from different depths below the surface to waiting science instruments. He also talked about how they've worked with SpaceX to figure out how the "Red Dragon" -- a Mars lander based on SpaceX's Dragon capsule -- might take not one, but two of these beasts down to land on Mars. They'd sit inside the capsule, and drill right through Dragon's heat shield to get to Martian soil, delivering the samples back inside the capsule to instruments.

Not to blow my own horn (well, not too loudly) but here is a post I made here seven months ago:

I had a wild idea, does anybody know if it is technically feasible?

Instead of extending a drill mechanism out of the main hatch, would it be possible to simply drill straight down right through the heat shield? This drill would, after all, be built to drill through solid rock, and I believe that the material that heat shields are made of is designed for heat resistance/ablation, not rock-like strength, in fact they are quite fragile as I understand it. Or alternatively, perhaps the shield could incorporate a small 'cap' directly below the base of the internal drill mechanism, that can be removed upon landing. (It might be simpler and less problematic to simply drill right through the heat shield, though.)

If the drill is not required to be physically extended out the main hatch by some kind of robot arm, the mass and volume saved by not including the required arm mechanism could be used for additional instrumentation, not to mention that it would be a lot easier to extract the drill cores to the interior of the Red Dragon.

[Gsnorgathon]

Good call, Mongo! Now, do you have some suggestions about how they can avoid contaminating the samples?

[Kaputnik]

It's been interesting to figure out how Red Dragon is supposed to work, as more details have been released.
When the idea was first mooted, I was extremely sceptical. It seemed that a Dragon would simply have too high a ballistic coefficient to work as a Mars lander.

The key information that has emerged is that Dragon appears to have a very low dry mass, and, crucially, the landing profile relies on a last-moment blast of the retros to produce a 7G deceleration to bring the craft to a soft landing from an approach speed of more than Mach 2.

Given this landing profile, some of the more inventive ideas suggested upthread, such as dropping off additional payloads on the way down, or having propellant in reserve to make a 'hop' after landing, seem IMHO to be all but impossible.

What would be *really* exciting would be if SpaceX were to offer their best price for a dedicated Mars lander, using a more conventional design which would be much more flexible wrt payload, but using their in-house technologies (e.g. PICA-X and Draco), as well as a Falcon launcher, to greatly reduce the cost.

[Mongo]

That's the big question -- whether it would be more cost-effective to use a nearly stock Dragon, with its very low cost, to deliver a science cargo of several tonnes to the Martian surface, or to design a vessel specifically for Mars, which could deliver a substantially larger payload to Mars surface but at a much greater cost.

My guess is that a specially designed landing vehicle plus Falcon Heavy launcher could deliver maybe six tonnes of scientific payload to the Martian surface in a single package, but would cost as much as three separate two-tonne payload Red Dragon landers plus launchers.

[Kaputnik]

A 'nearly stock' Dragon would be aiming to deliver about 1t to the surface (not 'several tonnes'). The papers from AMES suggest an entry mass of about 7t, with 2t of that being the propellant burned in the last few seconds to reduce speed from Mach 2 to a soft landing. That leaves 5t to be landed, of which 4t is the capsule itself.
Now, that 4t figure for an empty Dragon equipped with landing gear and Super-Dracos is one that I find a little hard to digest. Bear in mind the far smaller Soyuz capsule, which has no large liquid fuelled engines or landing legs etc, is 3t. The Super Draco thrusters are going to have to pretty special indeed (i.e. have exceptionally high thrust:weight).
Not saying that this cannot work, obviously SpaceX and AMES think it can, but I think we should be aware of the margins that the system has.

Entry mass is proportional to the amount of drag that the vehicle can generate. A dedicated Mars lander would use the full 4.6m payload capacity of the FH, allowing, in theory, up to 60% greater entry mass than Red Dragon (i.e. over 11t). In addition, a dedicated platform could offer wider scope for different payloads, and could probably offer some mass savings by not carrying unnecessary hardware all the way to the surface.

I'm not saying that Red Dragon isn't a cool proposal- just I think some people are pinning too many hopes on it.

[Mongo]

Acording to SpaceX, the dry mass of a Dragon is 3,180 kg (albeit without landing structure).

The landed mass according to this proposal for Red Dragon EDL is stated as 5,180 kg

5,180 kg minus 3,180 kg is 2,000 kg

The "1,000 kg" figure being thrown about is a conservative estimate of landed payload, with a considerable safety margin. Depending on reentry trajectory and altitude of the surface, it can go higher (perhaps considerably higher, as seen in the above report).

[Kaputnik]

A 3180kg Dragon does not have, as far as I am aware, the Super-Draco engines included in that mass.

No data has been released on the mass of these engines. However, we do know that they will provide an a total axial thrust of 120,000lb; given that they are canted at an angle of at least 35 degrees, and probably more, the actual thrust produced must be in the region of 150,000lb or higher. A generous figure for thrust:weight ratio is about 50:1 (IMHO) which gives an engine mass of 1363kg, plus tank mass. The engine mass could easily be greater than this if they are canted at a steeper angle and/or if the T:W is lower. Admittedly the mass could be lower as well, but, again IMHO, not by much.

As you say, the landing gear and its deployment system also has to be accounted for.

If SpaceX have managed to squeeze the engines, tanks, and landing gear into a capsule the same weight as a Soyuz (which has none of those things), yet at the same time made it twice as big.... then I take my hat off to them!

[dtolman]

A few days ago Space.com posted a speculative article about a Mars sample return mission built off of the SpaceX Dragon 2 capsule, where it would rendezvous with the 2020 Mars Rover to pickup its return cargo. What makes it a bit more interesting, is that this does not appear to be a mission organized by the SpaceX corporation - instead the plan is from NASA's Ames Research Center as a feasibility study of a potential 2022 mission using cost reducing "off the shelf equipment" - with the added benefit of being simpler than other model missions they have considered.

To quote the relevant bits from the article:
In the Red Dragon study, the spacecraft would make a direct entry into the atmosphere of Mars. It would descend to the Red Planet's surface without a parachute system, using retro propulsion for a precision touchdown.

As currently envisioned, the sample-toting Red Dragon return vehicle would blast off the Martian surface (with the aid of the MAV) and head directly for Earth.

A study scenario sees a later mission, using a Dragon and launched by a Falcon Heavy, performing a rendezvous with the return vehicle in high Earth orbit. The mission would then retrieve the sample container and break the chain of contact with Mars by transferring the sample into a sterile and secure container.
...
Other recent Mars sample-return ideas would employ three Red Planet missions, requiring a lot of flight hardware and numerous interfaces.

EDIT: I meant to post this in the Past/Future forum - my apologies on the misplacement. - Merged with existing Red Dragon thread - Mod

[sittingduck]

I have a question concerning the CGI used to showcase Red Dragon. In this attached composite they used an image from Curiosity. I wanted to check whether or not they had scaled the Dragon correctly. Does anybody know what sol that image was made?

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[eoincampbell]

Just beyond Dingo Gap sol 528

[sittingduck]

Thanks eoincampbell!

By my reckoning that places the craft ~93 meters away, and vertically spanning 6.5° in the NAVCAM image gives it a height of around 10.5 meters, quite a bit bigger than the actual height which is around 5 or 6 meters depending on source. Taking the largest value of 6.1 meters, this is how it would have really looked in that spot (attached).

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[anticitizen2]

I am hearing that Red Dragon is more likely to get to mars than InSight, in 2018 or 2020. NASA is going to have the opportunity to 'instrument the hell out of it'. It is a fairly concrete effort within NASA, for something I've only heard rumors about before recently. Are we allowed to speculate or wish for a set of instruments? (Nobody say seismometer)

We probably won't have to wait more than a year to hear a lot more about the project, but I'm curious about what could be done.

I know sample return has been discussed, but on this timeline I think scientific instruments are more likely.

[stevesliva]

I am hearing that Red Dragon is more likely to get to mars than InSight, in 2018 or 2020. NASA is going to have the opportunity to 'instrument the hell out of it'.

As it stands now, it has to compete with Insight's sunk costs for that to happen.

[mcaplinger]

I am hearing that Red Dragon is more likely to get to mars than InSight, in 2018 or 2020.

Citation needed.

[vjkane]

I am hearing that Red Dragon is more likely to get to mars than InSight, in 2018 or 2020. NASA is going to have the opportunity to 'instrument the hell out of it'. It is a fairly concrete effort within NASA, for something I've only heard rumors about before recently. Are we allowed to speculate or wish for a set of instruments? (Nobody say seismometer)

We probably won't have to wait more than a year to hear a lot more about the project, but I'm curious about what could be done.

I know sample return has been discussed, but on this timeline I think scientific instruments are more likely.

There's a lot of work needed to design and qualify systems that can reliably function for the months required for a Mars mission and then to ensure that the lander can function in the temperature extremes of Mars with just a few hours a day of good sun exposure.

To give a comparison, one of the engineers I correspond with tells me that the standard CubeSat deployment racks that work well in Earth orbit need to be redesigned to ensure reliability on a planetary mission where the deployment may occur months or years after launch. Think of every system on a Red Dragon mission, and every one needs to be rated and tested for a longer and environmentally more extreme mission than the Earth-orbiting Dragon spacecraft with a lifetime of days or weeks.

Red Dragon is an intriguing idea, but it's not something that that I think gets done quietly by some small team with some small budget. Space is hard.

[Phil Stooke]

Phil

[Seryddwr]

We're gonna need more wheels...



Seriously, as someone with no insider knowledge of the industry, I thought this concept was on the back burner at Hawthorne. Everything seemed to go completely quiet until a few months ago. I have never been happier to discover I'm wrong!

[dtolman]

The article at Gizmodo has more details than the tweet, and it looks like this may be the start of a private wave of planetary expeditions for SpaceX... and that this isn't a one-off. Note the use of plural - "Red Dragon missions".

---
A spokesperson for SpaceX has shared some additional details about the planned mission—and they are, to put it plainly, thrilling.

It will be, as expected, an uncrewed flight. The purpose of these initial missions will be to figure out how safely land large payloads on Mars. To do that, SpaceX plans on launching their Red Dragons with the Falcon Heavy rocket—an ultra souped-up version of the Falcon 9 rocket that we saw land on a barge earlier this month.

Most exciting, though, is that these Red Dragon missions are also intended to lead into upcoming plans for building something on Mars. Elon Musk previously promised to reveal details about plans for a Martian city at the upcoming International Aeronautical Conference this September. According to the spokesperson, the Red Dragon missions will inform that future Mars colonization architecture.

----

Mars is the destination for this mission, but Elon Musk is already hinting at places much, much more further afield. The re-designed Dragon was built to withstand environments all over the solar system he said

[Explorer1]

Things are starting to heat up! (no pun intended).
Although from the sounds of it this is explicitly a technology demonstrator (like the Schiaperelli lander) we can at least hope for some nice HD EDL footage, can't we? A private company can certainly afford to do that sort of outreach when the mass requirements are less stringent than for a science mission...

[elakdawalla]

Red Dragon could enable some exciting future robotic missions to Mars in the future, for sure, but please remember that human spaceflight is beyond the scope of this forum. Go to nasaspaceflight.com to discuss that.

[acastillo]

I suspect, and would encourage NASA to propose and build instruments for this mission, like they do for ESA missions. I am wondering, if we assume little to no redesign of Dragon 2 for Red Dragon, what kind of instruments could it take to Mars. One idea that I have heard before is a deep, relatively speaking, drill. The drill would be housed in the lander, and drill through the floor and heat shield before drilling into Mars. A deep drill on mars would be have amazing scientific return, if landed in the right area. I know that the Planetary Society was helping to enable that technology. What other instrument ideas would make sense?

[Stratespace]

In this techno-oriented mission, I imagine more payloads directly related to SpaceX's ultimate goal, such as a greenhouse and a Sabatier reactor for ISRU.

[nprev]

I would expect this initial mission to be almost pure flight test. Assessing the endurance of the Dragon's basic systems over an 8-mo cruise period & out from under the Earth's magnetic shelter is undoubtedly a key goal in addition to EDL.

Actual science...probably minimal if any. I would be surprised if they don't send at least one camera for surface imaging, though.

[dtolman]

NASA's statement on their partnership with SpaceX for this mission:

http://blogs.nasa.gov/newman/2016/04/27/ex...linkId=23925499

"Among the many exciting things we’re doing with American businesses, we’re particularly excited about an upcoming SpaceX project that would build upon a current “no-exchange-of-funds” agreement we have with the company. In exchange for Martian entry, descent, and landing data from SpaceX, NASA will offer technical support for the firm’s plan to attempt to land an uncrewed Dragon 2 spacecraft on Mars."

Doesn't read like NASA is supplying any instruments, or planning on it. With only 2 years... this seems more like an engineering testbed with whatever science they can throw in there being a bonus. Maybe they can get some low cost instruments in there? Or knowing Musk... low cost/high risk/high reward?

[nprev]

If they're smart--and there's no doubt that they are--this will be an almost pure engineering test flight. Integrating a significant science payload would add a lot of unnecessary risk in all ways (cost, schedule, and performance). If it works, then I'm sure there will be later opportunities to fly science missions using the now-proven platform.

[climber]

When exactly will be 2018 launch window?

[Paolo]

launch window should be around May +/- one month

[tanjent]

This is an issue that has arisen recently in Schiaparelli's case, and I am still not quite comfortable with the idea of going to the trouble of making landings without a science payload. Clearly, almost any instrument package would weigh significantly more than no instruments at all, and leaving the instruments out would reduce fuel consumption and risks associated with atmospheric entry. But the landing technology to be tested is focused on heavier classes of payloads anyway - we already know that air bags work pretty well for the smaller packages.

The risks of missing a launch window if instrument development falls behind schedule don't seem so serious if instruments tested on earlier missions can be re-used. Even on battery power, photography and remote sensing can probably characterize the immediate vicinity of the landing site in three days just as well as the Viking landers were able to characterize theirs in three years with the help of nuclear power. It wouldn't exactly be new knowledge, but we only possess that kind of data for half a dozen locations on the planet - why not take the opportunity to add a couple more?