Showing posts with label SpaceX. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SpaceX. Show all posts

Friday, April 16, 2021

NASA selects SpaceX Lunar Starship to return humans to the Moon

Today NASA announced it has selected SpaceX "to continue development of the first commercial human lander that will safely carry the next two American astronauts to the lunar surface" as part of the Artemis program. A year ago it was announced three contenders were selected to compete for this mission - SpaceX, Blue Origin's led "National Team" and Dynetics - and SpaceX revealed it is working for a lunar optimized Starship. Now we know SpaceX's proposal has won the race. In a milestone-based fixed-price contract SpaceX will be able to receive $2.89 billion to develop the Lunar Starship. The year when SpaceX needs to land humans back to the Moon is not specified yet.

In addition to today's announcement, NASA shared latest official render of SpaceX's Lunar Starship which slightly differs from last year's version:
SpaceX Lunar Starship selected by NASA for Artemis program (v.2021)

Monday, April 5, 2021

First humans on Mars

Young Irish 3D artist Matthew Ryan has created a stunning animation of a SpaceX's Starship getting people from Earth to Mars for the first time ever. Here is the final scene with a group of Starmen disembarking from Starship on Mars:

First humans on Mars: Starmen disembarking from SpaceX Starship on Mars by Matthew Ryan
Full animation here:

Thursday, April 1, 2021

SpaceX Starship interior concept for 100 passengers by Joseph Lantz

Joseph Lantz has created his concept for the interior layout of SpaceX's 100-passenger Starship (the passenger capacity goal stated by Elon Musk). Therefore this concept isn't meant for the first crew Starships on Mars used as temporary habitats for the first few years (those first Starships will have much smaler crew). The concept divides the pressurized living space into 8 decks (here shown from top to bottom) and follows a common design choice of a central stairway through all the decks.

All Decks of SpaceX 100-passenger Starship interior concept by Joseph Lantz
Deck 8 - Observation
Deck 8 (Observation) of SpaceX 100-passenger Starship interior concept by Joseph Lantz

Tuesday, March 30, 2021

Astronaut relaxing near a SpaceX Starship spaceport

Picture of the Day 30/03/2021 - Astronaut leaning against his Mars rover derived from a retro car near a SpaceX Starship spaceport by American video game concept artist Darren Bacon in collaboration with parody account Bored Elon.

Astronaut relaxing near a SpaceX Starship spaceport by Darren Bacon and Bored Elon

Thursday, March 11, 2021

SpaceX Starship landing on Mars by Kendall Dirks

Picture of the Day 11/03/2021 - SpaceX's crew Starship landing on Mars by young American 3D artist Kendall Dirks. More of his art here.

SpaceX's Starship landing on Mars by Kendall Dirks

Sunday, March 7, 2021

SpaceX 100+ Starship fleet arriving to Mars

Video animation with SpaceX's colonial fleet of 100+ Starships arriving to Mars by Austrian 3D environment artist Roger Bootsma. More of his art here.

Wednesday, March 3, 2021

Updated design of #dearMoon Starship (2021)

On March 3 dearMoon Project opened application process for 8 crew member spots on SpaceX's first crewed deep space mission - #dearMoon Starship flight around the Moon scheduled for 2023. Applications are open for everyone now, not just the artists as originally was planned. The applications page contains some official renders of Starship's updated design with the most visible differences being in main window design:

Updated design (2021) of SpaceX's dearMoon Starship - orbiting the Moon

Updated design (2021) of SpaceX's dearMoon Starship - launch

Updated design (2021) of SpaceX's dearMoon Starship - orbiting Earth

Tuesday, March 2, 2021

SpaceX has downselected 7 potential Mars landing sites for Starship

On September 2019 it was revealed SpaceX has selected several Starship candidate landing sites on Mars. The candidate sites were located in Southern Arcadia Planitia East of Erebus Montes and one in Phlegra Montes.

Since then SpaceX has conducted several workshops with the Mars science community to evaluate and narrow the list of candidate landing sites. All the sites must fit several criteria:
  1. close to significant deposits of water/ice, a required resource for in situ propellant production and a consumable to support habitation;
  2. elevation below -2 km (with respect to the MOLA geoid) that can support the delivery of large payloads, with -3 km preferred;
  3. latitude must be <40° for solar power and thermal management, and closer to the equator is desirable;
  4. multiple separate landing locations spaced within a few km of each other, to support the multiple missions needed to grow an outpost;
  5. slopes should be <5° over a 10 m length scale and the chance of impacting a rock greater than 0.5 m high (1 m diameter) should be <5%;
  6. landing site must be radar reflective to enable measurement of the distance to the surface, and it must be load bearing to support the spacecraft at touchdown.

Recently an abstract with the conclusions has been published (the results of the study will be presented in two weeks, at the 52nd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference), pointing out 4 prime and 3 secondary potential Starship landing sites selected for further study and located in Phlegra Montes, Erebus Montes and Southern Arcadia Planitia:
  • PM-1 has the lowest latitude and elevation of the Phlegra Montes sites, a clear association with LDAs (local ice deposits expressed as lobate debris aprons), well developed polygons (one of the indicators of ice-related morphologies), and has the highest SWIM (Subsurface Water Ice Mapping) score for geomorphic indicators of ice;
  • AP-1 (Arcadia Planitia) appears to be one of the safest sites and has a moderate combined SWIM score for ice;
  • AP-9 has the thickest ice from radar returns (of the Arcadia Planitia sites) and geomorphology indicating shallow ice. It has the highest combined SWIM score for ice, but appears slightly rocky and rough;
  • EM-16 has a clear association with an LDA with nearby brain terrain and the strongest radar return for shallow ice and the highest combined SWIM score of the Erebus Montes sites;
  • AP-8 (Arcadia Planitia) appears to be one of the safest sites and has the highest neutron and combined SWIM scores for ice;
  • EM-15 (Erebus Montes) is associated with a prominent but less extensive LDA, has well developed polygons, nearby brain terrain and appears smooth;
  • PM-7 is adjacent to lineated valley fill (attributed to glacial flow) and appears to be the safest of the Phlegra sites.

We highlighted selected ★ prime and ★ secondary sites on the map:
7 potential sites for SpaceX Starship Mars landing
Mars heightmap (180° in center)

Friday, February 26, 2021

SpaceX Mars exploration rover concept by Alexander Svanidze

Russian game artist Alexander Svanidze has created his concept of SpaceX's Mars exploration rover (CyberRover) made by Tesla. More of his art here.

SpaceX Mars exploration rover by Alexander Svanidze

SpaceX Mars exploration rover by Alexander Svanidze - cockpit

SpaceX Mars exploration rover by Alexander Svanidze - exterior

SpaceX Mars exploration rover by Alexander Svanidze - interior

Sunday, January 24, 2021

Animation of SpaceX Starship interior concept by DeepSpaceCourier

Two brothers from DeepSpaceCourier have created an animation of their concept for SpaceX's Starship interior. The animation takes through each level of the Starship showing it from 1st person perspective.

Common room:
SpaceX's Starship interior concept by DeepSpaceCourier - Common room
Utilities:
SpaceX's Starship interior concept by DeepSpaceCourier - Utilities

Monday, December 28, 2020

SpaceX Starship Super Heavy launch complex by Dale Rutherford

Picture of the Day 28/12/2020 - SpaceX's launch complex with several launch towers for Starship Super Heavies by Scottish photographer & designer Dale Rutherford. More of his art here.

SpaceX's Starship Super Heavy launch complex by Dale Rutherford

Wednesday, December 9, 2020

Video footage of Starship SN8 high-altitude test flight

Today SpaceX's Starship SN8 test vehicle performed first high-altitude test flight for Starship development program. The test was successful, reaching several milestones, including successfully performing its distinctive "skydiver" belly flop maneuver, till the very end of the flight when Starship SN8 crashed and exploded on the landing pad. SpaceX has already almost completed SN8's successor - Starship SN9. Here is full footage of today's flight from SpaceX's official livestream.

Starship is the second (spacecraft) stage of the fully reusable two-stage super heavy-lift launch vehicle currently developed by leading NewSpace company SpaceX. The main purpose of building such a large rocket with more than double the power of Saturn V is to enable the colonization of Mars. But Starship will be capable to do a lot of different tasks – to place satellites or space stations in orbit, ferry passengers to space stations or the Moon and even ferry passengers or cargo between any destinations on Earth within an hour.

Scott Manley's technical analysis of the flight:

Lift-off of the Starship SN8 by Tony Bela

New illustration depicting lift-off of SpaceX's Starship SN8 test vehicle from company's launch site in Boca Chica, Texas by Australian space illustrator Tony Bela. Yesterday Starship SN8 12.5km test flight was scrubbed but there is a new attempt scheduled today.

You can view Tony's infographic of the upcoming Starship SN8 flight here and his incredibly detailed posters of the flight here.

Lift-off of SpaceX's Starship SN8 by Tony Bela

Monday, December 7, 2020

Painting of SpaceX Starship SN8 on launch stand by Colin Doublier

Picture of the Day 7/12/2020 - Painting of SpaceX's Starship SN8 on launch stand at SpaceX's launch site in Boca Chica, Texas before its 12.5km test flight by French urban artist Colin Doublier. More of his art here. Starship SN8 is the first full scale flight-ready Starship prototype equipped with a nose cone, fins and three Raptor engines. Starship SN8 is accompanied by Starship's first sub-scale prototype - Starhopper - in this painting.

Painting of SpaceX's Starship SN8 on launch stand by Colin Doublier

Saturday, November 28, 2020

Incredibly detailed posters of SpaceX Starship SN8 15km test flight by Tony Bela

Australian space illustrator Tony Bela has created a set of four incredibly detailed sequential posters of the upcoming 15km test flight of SpaceX's Starship SN8 test vehicle. You can view Tony's infographic of the upcoming Starship SN8 flight here.
Starship SN8 on the launch stand at Boca Chica, Texas
Poster of SpaceX's Starship SN8 on launch stand by Tony Bela
Starship SN8 launch
Poster of SpaceX's Starship SN8 launch by Tony Bela

Sunday, November 15, 2020

Leaked official render of SpaceX Starship Super Heavy at launch pad in Boca Chica, Texas

Today YouTuber EpicDaniel posted a video which was allegedly uploaded on the official SpaceX YouTube channel on September, 28th 2019 and removed later. The video shows Starship development progress at the time and features a render of Starship Super Heavy at launch pad in Boca Chica, Texas. Here is a screen-stitch created by Austin Barnard from the video:

Leaked official render of SpaceX Starship Super Heavy at launch pad in Boca Chica, Texas
Note that the (possibly official) render is more than a year old now and thus outdated.
Here is full video reuploaded by EpicDaniel today:

Saturday, November 14, 2020

SpaceX Starship interior concept for 64 passengers

Swedish space designer Erik Corshammar (Erc X) and YouTuber smallstars have created their concept of SpaceX's Starship interior layout for 64 passengers.

SpaceX's Starship interior concept by Erik Corshammar (ErcX) & smallstars - docked to ISS

SpaceX's Starship interior concept by Erik Corshammar (ErcX) & smallstars

Deck 0 - cargo hold

Deck 1 - egress options & EVA spacesuits
Deck 2 & 3 - 32 crew bunks in each deck
SpaceX's Starship interior concept by Erik Corshammar (ErcX) & smallstars - crew bunks (deck 2 & 3)

Thursday, November 5, 2020

Sketch of SpaceX Starship SN8 15km flight by Colin Doublier

French urban artist Colin Doublier has created his sketch of SpaceX's Starship SN8 upcoming 15km test flight. More of his art here. The flight will (hopefully) happen in next week and Starship SN8 is the first full scale flight-ready Starship prototype equipped with a nose cone, fins and three Raptor engines.

Sketch of SpaceX's Starship SN8 15km flight by Colin Doublier

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

SpaceX: No Earth-based government has authority or sovereignty over Martian activities

Free Mars poster for Total Recall (1990) by Rhys Cooper
It has been revealed that in Starlink's terms of service SpaceX requires beta testers to recognize Mars as a "free planet". Under the section "Governing Law" the parties agree that:
"For Services provided on Mars, or in transit to Mars via Starship or other colonization spacecraft, the parties recognize Mars as a free planet and that no Earth-based government has authority or sovereignty over Martian activities. Accordingly, Disputes will be settled through self-governing principles, established in good faith, at the time of Martian settlement."
Interestingly the terms for the Moon are different:
"For Services provided to, on, or in orbit around the planet Earth or the Moon, these Terms and any disputes between us arising out of or related to these Terms, including disputes regarding arbitrability will be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of California in the United States."
Starlink is a satellite internet constellation currently being deployed by SpaceX and it will provide high-speed low-latency internet anywhere on the world (and beyond). The constellation will ultimately consist of thousands of mass-produced small satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO), working in combination with ground transceivers.

As far as we know it is the first time any entity with real potential to send humans to Mars (defined by us as governments and private corporations with the independent human spaceflight capability, which are only four: Russia (since 1961), US (since 1962), China (since 2003) and SpaceX (since 2020)) has declared that Mars should be governed under the principles of self-government.

It remains to be seen if SpaceX will be in power do define that (US government can easily stop SpaceX operations until the company abides to the US and international law) and most likely it's just a way for Elon Musk to draw attention to the upcoming Starlink public release, but it would be cool to see Mars as an independent planet even before the timeframe we have speculated: internal self-governance in 2080s and complete independence in the 22nd century.

*Cover poster "Free Mars" by Rhys Cooper for Total Recall (1990) movie.