SpaceX Interplanetary Transport System (updates)

[DocM 15,788]

Elon musk hinted that the Mars Colonial Transporter would be renamed in light of it now being capable of missions beyond Mars.

 

Elon Musk ✔ @elonmusk
Turns out MCT can go well beyond Mars, so will need a new name
8:22 PM - 16 Sep 2016

Elon Musk ✔ @elonmusk
Maybe Ultimate Spaceship, Version 2? Mostly because it is not the ultimate and there isn't a version 1.
9:43 PM - 16 Sep 2016 

 

Elon Musk ✔ @elonmusk
Preview of the @SpaceX interplanetary transport system at @IAC2016
https://t.co/Rz4XmeAoRw
Edited by DocM, Today, 10:24 PM.

 

When asked to confirm the name....

Elon Musk ✔ @elonmusk
@thescalex @SpaceX @IAC2016 @YouTube ITS it is

 

The Interplanetary Transport System  reveal at the International Astronautical Congress in Mexico on Sept. 21 will be part of a larger presentation about colonizing Mars, but clearly other destinations are on the table.  

 

Certainly Ceres, Vesta and other asteroid belt objects come to mind, but so does Jupiter's remote moon Callisto, which has an even more benign radiation environment than Mars. 3rd largest moon in the solar system, it's almost as large as the planet Mercury.

 

Fasten your seat belts

 

 

Edited September 18, 2016 by DocM

[Draggendrop 5,747]

The time is getting closer for us "Wanderers".....

 

BoosterLivesMatter...which is why we save them.

 

[Unobscured Vision 2,632]

Omg omg omg omg omg omg nom nom nom nom ....

 

Okay .. I'm okay .... I get home from an overtime shift at work and I see this ... /happydance ... thank you.  

 

I vote that "BFR" is now that moniker meaning "Booster For Real"  as in "We're not mucking about now". And with the updated Mission Set(s), we (as a Species) really aren't mucking about now. 

[DocM 15,788]

Rehash of what's been stated or strongly hinted. 

 

Facts come September 21 at IAC2016 in Guadalajara, Mexico at 1330 local

 

Booster/1st stage

 

"Makes Saturn V look small"

Diameter: 15 meters (Saturn V - 10.1 meters)

Engine: Raptor Full Flow Staged Combustion

Number of engines: 9-30 (depends on engine thrust)

Propellant: liquid methane & liquid oxygen

Thrust: at least  20,340,000 N-m/15 million lbf 

 

Spadecraft/2nd stage

 

Frigging enormous - a battlestar

Integrated crew/cargo vehicle and upper stage

Cargo: up to 100 tonnes 

Engines: Raptor derivative

Number of engines: unknown (likely 5-7)

Propellant: liquid methane & liquid oxygen

Thrust: unknown

 

CONOPS

 

Spacecraft launched

Spacecraft/S2 burns its propellant for orbital insertion

Refuelled in orbit by tankers

Spacecraft/S2 Earth departure burn (high deltaV, short trip)

Mars arrival and capture

Atmospheric entry (lifting)

Vertical landing

Unload crew/cargo

 

Refuel from previously landed In-Situ Resource Utilization factory

Return launch (Single Stage to Earth)

 

All subject to change on Sept 21, of course.

 

 

 

[Unobscured Vision 2,632]

^^ And 5/6 of it will be reuseable. ^^ Only portion that isn't is the fuel.  

[DocM 15,788]

THIS IS NOT OFFICIAL, but someone rolled up all the rumors and generated a notional graphic to show the expected scale of ITS. No details on the vehicle, just an outline, and the interstage is probably  way too long and the "fat" part of the booster too short. We'll see how this holds up. 

 

 

Edited September 18, 2016 by DocM

[Unobscured Vision 2,632]

The S1 probably will look much like that. Beyond that, no. The S2/Spacecraft Section won't have a Fairing, for certain. It's far too large to produce on that scale, not to mention wasteful ....

 

Unless they've figured out how to get Fairings back.  

 

[EDIT] Looking at the S1-to-Transtage section, it's likely that it won't taper towards the top like that. They need all the LOX they can carry. Expect it to remain the same diameter throughout the entire length of the vehicle.

Edited September 18, 2016 by Unobscured Vision

[DocM 15,788]

They're working on fairing recovery, with recent launches having fairing halves with attitude control thrusters and hitting the water intact. Later they'll add GPS guided parafoils and recover them. Saves a few $million a launch.

Edited September 18, 2016 by DocM

[Unobscured Vision 2,632]

Sweet ... I wonder when they'll test out the parafoils. Knowing SpaceX and the tendency to "put several eggs in a basket", the RTF in November/December when they test a few other goodies?  

[DocM 15,788]

The parafoils are based on off the shelf items from Airborne Systems,  the same outfit that has made large chutes for the military, SpaceX, Boeing and NASA. Similar to JPADS, GPADS and their DragonFly line.

 

http://airborne-sys.com/product/dragonfly/

 

Dragon recovery system

 

http://airborne-sys.com/space-recovery/

Edited September 18, 2016 by DocM

[Unobscured Vision 2,632]

(I just read my sentence structure ... ugh. I'm tired. Overtime ... been working a lot. Pulling more today. Hey, gotta love double-time. )

[DocM 15,788]

IAC 2016 plenary sessions, including Musk's, will Livestream here. There is currently other content, but this what we've been given. I'll update if this changes.

 

Link....

[Draggendrop 5,747]

Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species

livestream countdown...

 

 

 

Quote

Scheduled for Sep 27, 2016
SpaceX Founder, CEO, and Lead Designer Elon Musk will discuss the long-term technical challenges that need to be solved to support the creation of a permanent, self-sustaining human presence on Mars. The technical presentation will focus on potential architectures for sustaining humans on the Red Planet that industry, government and the scientific community can collaborate on in the years ahead.

[Draggendrop 5,747]

This is for IAC Industry Day only...should be some great data from this...

 

IAC 2016 Industry Day Agenda

 

Quote

Press Release From: International Astronautical Federation 
Posted: Tuesday, September 20, 2016

 

We would like to cordially invite you to attend the IAC2016 Industry Day to be held at the Global Networking Forum (GNF) on Tuesday 27 September 2016 in room Guadalajara Hall 8.  The Industry Day 2016 foresees a series of exciting GNF Late Breaking News by top executives, as well as two engaging roundtables on focusing on the future of the Space Industry.

 

The IAC2016 Industry Day will include the following events:

 

9:20
Welcoming Remarks – Jean Yves Le Gall, CNES President and IAF Incoming President

 

9:30-12:30 
GNF Late Breaking News 
Media Moderator – Frank Morring, Aviation Week

 

9:30 – 10:00  GNF Late Breaking News from OneWeb – Greg Wyler

10:05– 10:35  GNF Late Breaking News from Virgin Galactic - George Whitesides

10:40 – 11:10 GNF Late Breaking News from Blue Origin – Rob Meyerson

11:15 –11:45 GNF Late Breaking News from Planet – Robbie Schingler

11:50 – 12:20 GNF How Europe is paving the future with Ariane 6 and Vega C
Stephane Israel, Chairman and CEO, Arianespace
Johann-Dietrich Woerner, Director General, European Space Agency (ESA)

12:30 – 13:30  Industry Lunch (Upon Invitation Only)
The Once and Future Mars, 800 Years of Mars Exploration in 30 Minutes
Keynote Speech by James H. Crocker – VP and GM, Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company, International

 

14:40 – 16:30
IRC GNF: (Format: Industry Executive Conversation)
Shifting the Landscape for Global Space Industry– Growing Partnerships in a Competitive Environment – Systems Integration to Big Data

 

Moderator: Carissa Christensen, Managing Partner, Tauri Group (confirmed)

 

Speakers:

John Elbon, Boeing VP/GM, Space Exploration, The Boeing Company;
Kay Sears, VP, Strategy and BD, Lockheed Martin;
Fritz Merkle, Member of the Management Board, OHB;
Vincenzo Giorgio, Vice President for Institutional Marketing and Sales, Thales Alenia Space;
Michael Suffredini, President and Co-Founder , Axiom Space, LLC
Chris Boshuizen, Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Data Collective

16:30 – 17:45
New Dimensions of Space - What's Next? 

 

Moderator: Gerd Gruppe, Member of the Executive Board,German Aerospace Center (DLR)

Speakers:

Philippe Moreels , Head of Strategy and Business Development, Astroscale Pte. Ltd.
Bart Reijnen, Senior Vice-President On-Orbit Services and Exploration , Airbus Defence and Space
Dick Rocket, CEO and Co-Founder, NewSpace Global

 

// end //

http://spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=49526

 

[Unobscured Vision 2,632]

Yeah, I agree. An interesting day in of itself. Look at the Organizations being represented .. a lot of "Main Eventers" there.  

[Unobscured Vision 2,632]

Not long now, folks. 

 

 

[DocM 15,788]

Yay!!!!

 

@elonmusk

SpaceX propulsion just achieved first firing of the Raptor interplanetary transport engine https://t.co/vRleyJvBkx

 

@elonmusk
Production Raptor goal is specific impulse of 382 seconds and thrust of 3 MN (~310 metric tons) at 300 bar

 

310t = 694,400 lbf

 

300 bar is 4,351 psi/30 MPa. More chamber pressure than the Russian oxygen rich stages combustion engines.

 

 

Mach diamonds

 

 

Edited September 26, 2016 by DocM

[DocM 15,788]

 

@elonmusk
Chamber pressure is almost 3X Merlin, so engine is about the same size for a given area ratio

 

@elonmusk

@rocketrepreneur 382s is with a 150 area ratio vacuum (or Mars ambient pressure) nozzle. Will go over specs for both versions on Tues.

Edited September 26, 2016 by DocM

[DocM 15,788]

@davidkyoon
@elonmusk Sweet Jesus, that means you are pumping to 45-50 MPa... Surely this will be using multiple stage pumps?

 

@elonmusk
@davidkyoon yes

 

@williamwinters
@elonmusk @rocketrepreneur based on your other specs, is that like a ~14 foot diameter nozzle?

 

@elonmusk
@williamwinters @rocketrepreneur pretty close
 

[Beittil 538]

Man, it is going to be fun watching the full scale version of this baby roast the environment in Texas some day

[DocM 15,788]

Full Flow Staged Combustion engines supposedly scale nicely, so this could move very quickly.  The USAF upper stage Raptor has to be delivered Dec 31 2017, just 15 months.

Edited September 26, 2016 by DocM

[+John. 1,386]

Does anyone know what time the announcement will be?

[Unobscured Vision 2,632]

Yep, just reading about this. Wonderful achievement, and so much potential for up (and down) scaling the technology!

 

And it's insane how much kick ITS is going to have at upper altitudes from these engines .... oof. Those updrafts are going to be absolutely critical getting all of that mass uphill. Moreso than Apollo/Saturn. There's much more mass it has to push in comparison ... it needs all the lifting tricks it can take advantage of.

 

@John. That's gonna be towards the end of the event, I believe, when Elon makes the presentation for all of that.

[DocM 15,788]

Times: 1330 Central (US), 1430 Eastern (US), 1830 UT (assuming a +4 hour difference)

Edited September 26, 2016 by DocM

[Unobscured Vision 2,632]

2 hours ago, DocM said:

310t = 694,400 lbf

Niiiiiiiiiice .... We knew it was going to be 500k~650k per engine, but 694,400 +/- ... overachievers. Now if the engine layout guesses are correct for the S1, we can plot the liftoff power. And since we now know the desired specific impulse, we can roughly determine how much fuel it'll require -- and how big those S1 tanks will probably need to be.

 

One thing's for sure ... the Saturn V's S1 + S2 is gonna look cute by comparison.