SpaceX Starship Mars landing - Harder than you might think!

Today we are talking about the SpaceX Starship Mars landing. Will this work? SpaceX’s colossal Starship hurtling through the super thin Martian atmosphere and trying to slow enough to flip over and touch down successfully with the available propellant? It is a good question and one I’ve been curious about for quite some time. I think you are going to love this one.

You may also like this video about how Starship tank autogenous pressurization systems work

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[arturoeugster]

When we landed the 2 Viking spacecraft, there were some uncertaincies about the reflectivity properties of the Martian soil, which affected the accuracy of the radio altimeter. We used a 4 beam doppler landing radar and elected to decelerate down to a powered terminal constant velocity of 8 feet/sec at a higher altitude than necessary, because of the uncertainties of the altitude information.
The 4 beam doppler radar was also used to zero out the horizontal velocity components early in the descent.
The deceleration with the parachute was considerably less than expected, because the atmospheric density models were off by a factor of 3. After touch down, the remaining monopropellant levels were very low.
These landings were the first successful landings on Mars ever.
The Vikings measured the atmospheric data for several Martian years, showing large seasonal changes in pressure and temperature, due to the large excentricity of the orbit around the sun.

[bruceconnor]

Saturdays don't properly start until Marcus is in the house. (Yeah I went there) I'd love to see a deep dive about orbital refueling and fuel depots. Thanks for all your great work.

[ptolemythespacenerd]

Iterations are key and I think the header tank and weight distribution is definitely an important thing that will need lots of testing and trial and error but we hopefully will get there 🚀

[JohnnyWednesday]

The header tanks are partly needed for the initial phase of the landing burn where the fuel in the main tanks isn't guaranteed to be settled. For the longer burn on Mars? they might intend to use fuel in the main tanks after they have settled. Perhaps we've not heard talk of a 'switch over' yet because on Earth? the time between flip and landing doesn't allow for such a thing?

[srinivasvellore]

I agree, we could realistically expect SpaceX to make lot of changes to their design.
However your effort to put together all the calculations is greatly appreciated.👍

[pacldawson]

Just a big guess, but a Mars-landing Starship will end up having larger fins… which will cause it to look even more like a 1950’s style science fiction spaceship.

[MrHichammohsen]

Now this is a mini documentary that can blow your mind of how much you can understand when making things simpler. Thank you Marcus!

[BigNashtyBBQ]

Good Saturday morning with Marcus house and coffee

[ahaveland]

A Starship arriving at Mars would be going faster than orbital velocity, so to help scrub some of that it could use aerobraking for insertion, then dip into the atmosphere on each pass to lower and circularize its orbit, lose energy and also refine landing coordinates - then it could begin the landing sequence with the minimum possible velocity.
Still going to need a lot of propellant without a thick atmosphere, or massive drogue/parachutes to assist.

[yukelalexandre]

The main thing to not forget to consider is that the Martian atmosphere’s density does vary quite a lot in percentage terms from one season to another ✌️

[juliusEST]

Im quite certain they will end up with a modified starship variant for mars landing, so you will have a variant for earth orbit/surface transit, interplanetary transit and mars orbit/surface transit. Like it makes sense if they are planning to build lots of them.

[gijbuis]

The first time I have seen a real analysis of the delta V needed for a Starship landing on Mars... very impressive!

[TheosEpicVideos]

Hey mate,
Don’t ever apologise for making the videos and content you want to make. Today’s video was awesome. It’s always interesting to see these break downs of potential issues and explore the engineering and math behind the problem.
Keep up the great work.

[WilliamDye-willdye]

Personally, I prefer engineering videos like this over news videos. Dunno if us engineers are a big enough audience to support the channel tho.

As for the tech, economies of scale favor general-purpose, but diversity of tasks favor specialization. Consider the differences between launch vs land, delicate human cargo vs tough expendable supplies, Earth vs Luna vs Mars, and so on. If we get good at in-space transfer, then specialized vehicles (made with standardized components) make a lot more sense.

[andreasaslaksen]

Here's a topic I'd be interested in: How would the decision of first landing location on Mars be made and if different how would the decision on a future Mars colony location be made?

[robfive]

Exciting times ahead. . Excellent video as usual. Thank you MH + Team for all the hard work.

[esseff]

Some recent Mars orbiter missions have used repeated aero braking passes to kill velocity at Mars. That approach could maybe work for Starship, with first pass dumping enough to enter elliptic orbit, then additional passes to dump more velocity with aero braking. Final landing from closer orbit then needs less fuel. My impression is that first Earth test of StarShip will have a lone reentry to dissipate velocity over longer time, a significant fraction of an orbit. Same general idea at Mars could work with multiple aero braking passes.

[nigewot]

Hi Marcus....Yes please more content like this as well as the news. One like this and one news episode per week would be absolutely brilliant if you can do it!
Thanks!

[michaelginever]

That was a very good video. The news of the week is great, but the occasional examination of issues that lie ahead is appreciated.

[scabthecat]

When launching the first Starship vehicles to Mars, SpaceX may as well launch several designs at once, seeing as iterative design improvements would fall foul of the Mars launch windows.