{"id":15214,"date":"2016-09-21T22:52:23","date_gmt":"2016-09-21T14:52:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/nasa-to-have-limited-role-in-spacexs-planned-mars-campaign\/"},"modified":"2016-09-21T22:52:23","modified_gmt":"2016-09-21T14:52:23","slug":"nasa-to-have-limited-role-in-spacexs-planned-mars-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/nasa-to-have-limited-role-in-spacexs-planned-mars-campaign\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA to have limited role in SpaceX\u2019s planned Mars campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Artist's
Artist\u2019s concept of a Dragon spacecraft at Mars. Credit: SpaceX<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Expertise, input and advice from seasoned NASA engineers will improve SpaceX\u2019s chances of nailing the first commercial landing on Mars as soon as late 2018, a senior space agency official said Wednesday, but Elon Musk\u2019s space transport company will likely seek more independence from U.S. government support on later expeditions to the red planet.<\/p>\n

While considered high risk by NASA standards, the Red Dragon Mars mission revealed by SpaceX in April has a \u201creasonable likelihood\u201d of success, according to Phil McAlister, NASA\u2019s director of commercial spaceflight development.<\/p>\n

McAlister said NASA will act as a consultant to SpaceX on the Red Dragon project, the first of a series of Mars landers planned by the Hawthorne, California-based company. NASA\u2019s participation will diminish in later missions, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNASA\u2019s role is somewhat limited,\u201d McAlister said in a conference call with space industry experts Wednesday. \u201cWe don\u2019t have full insight into the overall mission design, nor should we.\u201d<\/p>\n

SpaceX plans multiple robotic Mars missions over the next decade leading up to a human expedition. It is all part of Elon Musk\u2019s long-term vision to colonize Mars, a topic the business mogul plans to discuss in detail during a presentation at the International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico, next week.<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s first Mars mission \u2014 Red Dragon \u2014 is slated to launch from Cape Canaveral as soon as May 2018 aboard a Falcon Heavy rocket, SpaceX\u2019s heavy-lift launcher that is now scheduled for its maiden flight in the first quarter of 2017.<\/p>\n

SpaceX recently announced the Falcon Heavy\u2019s debut will slip from later this year as the company investigates a major launch pad mishap Sept. 1 that destroyed a Falcon 9 rocket and its communications satellite payload.<\/p>\n

Any impact from the accident on Red Dragon\u2019s 2018 launch date \u2014 a schedule NASA officials already said was ambitious \u2014 is unclear.<\/p>\n

Red Dragon will not carry any people \u2014 Dragon is not designed to transport astronauts all the way to Mars on its own \u2014 but it is based on the human-rated spaceship SpaceX is developing under the auspices of NASA\u2019s commercial crew program to haul residents between Earth and the International Space Station.<\/p>\n

Musk has hinted at a concept for an \u201cInterplanetary Colonial Transporter\u201d to ferry people from Earth to Mars and beyond. The system would be launched by a giant rocket that is still on the drawing board.<\/p>\n

McAlister said SpaceX approached NASA in late 2015 seeking help with the Red Dragon mission, and the parties concluded an agreement in April. NASA is not providing any funds to SpaceX, but the agency is contributing labor and expertise valued at approximately $32 million over four years, according to Jim Reuter, deputy associate administrator for programs in NASA\u2019s space technology mission directorate.<\/p>\n

Reuter said in July that he estimates SpaceX is spending about 10 times more than NASA\u2019s planned expenditure on Red Dragon, or roughly $300 million.<\/p>\n

SpaceX has not said how much it is spending on Red Dragon, and McAlister did not offer his own cost estimate Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cNASA\u2019s participation, the way SpaceX characterized it, is it was highly desired, but it was not enabling necessarily,\u201d McAlister said. \u201cOur participation, we believe, will increase the likelihood that it will be successful, and SpaceX agrees with that, too\u2026 But SpaceX could eventually do all this on their own.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"File
File photo of Phil McAlister, NASA\u2019s director of commercial spaceflight development. Credit: NASA\/Jay Westcott<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Red Dragon spacecraft will weigh between 8 and 10 tons when it lands, Reuter said in July, up to ten times heavier than the Curiosity rover, largest vehicle ever to reach the Martian surface.<\/p>\n

A new type of landing system is needed to accommodate the leap in mass, replacing braking parachutes with rocket engines.<\/p>\n

NASA engineers believe supersonic retro-propulsion, using thrust from large rocket engines to do the parachute\u2019s job, is the best way to deliver hefty spacecraft to the Martian surface. The Red Dragon spacecraft\u2019s SuperDraco thrusters, mounted in pairs on four pods outside the capsule, will ignite at supersonic speed after the ship passes through the hottest part of its entry into Mars\u2019 atmosphere.<\/p>\n

Landing legs should deploy just before the craft settles onto Martian soil.<\/p>\n

McAlister said all of NASA\u2019s concepts for placing large habitats and crews on Mars employ supersonic retro-propulsion, a capability already demonstrated by SpaceX in Earth\u2019s atmosphere during recoveries of the company\u2019s large Falcon 9 first stage boosters.<\/p>\n

NASA needs data on how supersonic retro-propulsion works at Mars before sending people there, and McAlister said the Red Dragon partnership will give NASA the results it needs \u201cat least a decade sooner and at a small fraction of the cost\u201d than if the agency developed its own mission.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t even have a mission on the books, so it\u2019s not even clear how long it would take, but certainly at least a decade,\u201d McAlister said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey like to get 80 percent of the answers sooner, as opposed to getting 95 percent of the answers later,\u201d McAlister said of SpaceX. \u201cThey\u2019ve got a desire to get on with this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Musk said SpaceX intends to send a robotic mission to Mars during every launch opportunity. Mars launch windows come about every 26 months when the planets are properly positioned in their orbits.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpaceX\u2019s goal is to increase their independence from NASA on each mission as fast as possible,\u201d McAlister said. \u201cThe heaviest reliance will obviously be on this first mission.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow fast that happens is completely to be determined,\u201d McAlister said. \u201cWe\u2019ll have to see, but I would suspect future campaigns to be potentially more independent as we go forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The
The Red Dragon mission will launch on top of a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. Credit: SpaceX<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

NASA will provide deep space communications support to Red Dragon through a network of dish antennas in California, Spain and Australia, and experts at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory will provide navigation solutions to help plot the spacecraft\u2019s trajectory.<\/p>\n

Government engineers will give advice to SpaceX on the capsule\u2019s entry, descent and landing at Mars, the design of the spacecraft and its heat shield, and the aerodynamic environment in the rarefied Martian atmosphere.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn return, we are receiving most of SpaceX\u2019s EDL (entry, descent and landing) flight data,\u201d McAlister said. \u201cThis is a critical, critical technology for us. This is flight data that would not be available for us by any other means.\u201d<\/p>\n

NASA is also charged with advising SpaceX on planetary protection and the steps required to ensure the Dragon capsule does not contaminate Mars with Earth-based microbes, which could ruin future research into potential extant or past life there.<\/p>\n

McAlister said the government is still working on a plan to certify or approve commercial spacecraft for landings on other planets. The Red Dragon mission is \u201ccharting new territory\u201d in planetary protection requirements and oversight authority, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe paradigm for approving this mission is still somewhat immature,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not necessarily NASA\u2019s role to approve that. It is the responsiblity of the U.S. government. We are still working out the roles and responsibilities among the various agencies.\u201d<\/p>\n

NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration and the U.S. State Department might be involved in that process, he said.<\/p>\n

SpaceX and NASA are also discussing whether Red Dragon could fly with research instruments, such as payloads to demonstrate how future astronauts could live off resources in the Martian environment.<\/p>\n

McAlister said NASA would not share data on the Red Dragon\u2019s performance during entry, descent and landing, but lessons learned could improve the agency\u2019s computer models.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has never been done before \u2014 putting a large mass into the Mars atmosphere using supersonic retro-propulsion,\u201d McAlister said.<\/p>\n

\"NASA's
NASA\u2019s Deep Space Network will be vital to SpaceX\u2019s Red Dragon mission to Mars. Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

NASA aims to put human crews in orbit around Mars by the mid-2030s.<\/p>\n

Two keystones of that plan are the Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket and Orion crew capsule. NASA may procure commercially-built habitats and electric propulsion units for the half-year trips to and from Mars.<\/p>\n

McAlister said he sees SpaceX\u2019s Mars efforts as vital to NASA\u2019s \u201cJourney to Mars,\u201d an often-repeated tagline that permeates the space agency\u2019s communications and public relations campaigns.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need efforts of all U.S. capabilities, NASA and the private sector, if we\u2019re going to be successful on our \u2018Journey to Mars,’\u201d he said Wednesday. \u201cWe\u2019re going to Mars as a nation. It\u2019s not just NASA\u2019s journey. It\u2019s U.S.-led, but (it\u2019s) even an international journey.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think redundancy \u2014 multiple capabilities to do even the same thing \u2014 I see that as a feature, not a bug,\u201d McAlister said. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen through crew, and particularly cargo, to the International Space Station (that when) one system goes down and another system can do the same thing, that is a strength.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t believe in having one uber czar in charge of a specific technology or a specific capability.\u201d<\/p>\n

SpaceX\u2019s own privately-developed Mars exploration plan would rely on the company\u2019s own rockets and spaceships, plus other systems expected to be revealed by Musk on Sept. 27.<\/p>\n

\u201cSLS has got its own unique mission,\u201d McAlister said. \u201cIt\u2019s a very difficult mission. It\u2019s going to be one of the biggest launch vehicles ever built, and we\u2019re going to need that if we do deep space exploration.\u201d<\/p>\n

Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Artist\u2019s concept of a Dragon spacecraft at Mars. Credit: SpaceX Expertise, input and advice from seasoned NASA engineers will improve SpaceX\u2019s chances of nailing the first commercial landing on Mars as soon as late 2018, a senior space agency official said Wednesday, but Elon Musk\u2019s space transport company will likely seek more independence from U.S. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[678,367,3591,1561,3241,316],"class_list":["post-15214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-falcon-heavy","tag-mars","tag-phil-mcalister","tag-planetary-science","tag-red-dragon","tag-spacex"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15214"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15214\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}