presentation tesla 1 mars

• Falcon Heavy
• Human Spaceflight

Mars & Beyond

THE ROAD TO MAKING HUMANITY MULTIPLANETARY

“You want to wake up in the morning and think the future is going to be great - and that’s what being a spacefaring civilization is all about. It’s about believing in the future and thinking that the future will be better than the past. And I can’t think of anything more exciting than going out there and being among the stars.”

At an average distance of 140 million miles, Mars is one of Earth's closest habitable neighbors. Mars is about half again as far from the Sun as Earth is, so it still has decent sunlight. It is a little cold, but we can warm it up. Its atmosphere is primarily CO2 with some nitrogen and argon and a few other trace elements, which means that we can grow plants on Mars just by compressing the atmosphere. Gravity on Mars is about 38% of that of Earth, so you would be able to lift heavy things and bound around. Furthermore, the day is remarkably close to that of Earth.

SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket – collectively referred to as Starship – represent a fully reusable transportation system designed to carry both crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars and beyond. Starship is the world’s most powerful launch vehicle ever developed, capable of carrying up to 150 metric tonnes fully reusable and 250 metric tonnes expendable.

To Mars and back

Together the Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket create a reusable transportation system capable of on orbit refueling and leveraging Mars’ natural H2O and CO2 resources to refuel on the surface of Mars.

Starship launches with Starship Super Heavy booster. Booster separates, returning to Earth.

Starship enters Earths orbit while a refilling tanker launches to mate with Starship in orbit.

Tanker ship docks with Starship, refilling Starship and returning to Earth.

Once Starship has been fully refueled, it will begin its journey from Earth orbit, around the Sun and onward to Mars.

When Starship lands on Mars it will be refueled using Mars local resources of H20 and CO2.

When Starship is fully refueled it will begin Mars ascent and direct return to Earth.

ON-ORBIT REFILLING

Starship leverages tanker vehicles (essentially the Starship spacecraft minus the windows) to refill the Starship spacecraft in low-Earth orbit prior to departing for Mars. Refilling on-orbit enables the transport of up to 100 tons all the way to Mars. And if the tanker ship has high reuse capability, the primary cost is just that of the oxygen and methane, which is extremely low.

LANDING ON MARS

Starship will enter Mars’ atmosphere at 7.5 kilometers per second and decelerate aerodynamically. The vehicle’s heat shield is designed to withstand multiple entries, but given that the vehicle is coming into Mars’ atmosphere so hot, we still expect to see some ablation of the heat shield (similar to wear and tear on a brake pad). The engineering video below simulates the physics of Mars entry for Starship.

For inquiries about our human spaceflight program, contact [email protected]

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SpaceX's giant Starship will be 500 feet tall for Mars missions, Elon Musk says (video)

Starship reached orbital speed during its 3rd launch in March.

SpaceX's Starship, the largest rocket in the world, will get even bigger as the company continues to target Mars missions in the future.

Elon Musk , the billionaire founder of SpaceX , told employees on April 4 that Starship will eventually be as tall as 500 feet (150 meters), roughly 20% higher than the massive system aboard the Super Heavy rocket right now. 

What's more, advances in reusability will have each launch cost roughly $3 million each, Musk predicted; that's less than a third of what a (much smaller) Falcon 1 rocket launch cost in 2004 when inflation is taken into account. (The figure two decades ago was $5.9 million, according to NBC , which is roughly $9.5 million in 2024 dollars.) 

"These are sort of unthinkable numbers," Musk said in the Starship update, released publicly April 6, roughly one month after the third and last test flight to date . "Nobody ever thought that this was possible, but we're not breaking any physics to achieve this. So this is within the bounds, without breaking physics. We can do this."

Related: SpaceX fires up huge Super Heavy booster ahead of 4th Starship test flight (photos, video)

Musk tends to deliver Starship updates at least once a year to highlight progress the company is making toward its long-term plans of settling Mars . Indeed, the last year has seen three Starship launches, so there has been progress made recently. Musk didn't, however, address delays in launching Starship that have contributed to pushing back the launch date for the first moon landing under the NASA-led Artemis program .

SpaceX was named the vendor for the Artemis 3 landing mission that, until recently, was set for 2025. In January, NASA elected to hold the launch date another year, to 2026, due to a range of technical issues . Aside from Starship not being ready — the agency wants many successful launches before approving it for astronaut flights — Artemis 3 was also delayed due to slow progress on spacesuits and problems with the mission's Orion spacecraft , among other factors.

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However, Musk's words about Artemis, to employees, focused on Starship's future capabilities: orbiting the Earth and refilling its tanks, both of which have yet to be proven on its three test flights.

"This will ... be very important for the Artemis program for the NASA to get back to the moon," Musk said of those capabilities. He also envisions a "Moon Base Alpha" that would include ships "specialized for going to and from the moon", meaning there would be no heat shield or flaps due to the lack of atmosphere.

Related: NASA celebrates SpaceX Starship's 3rd test flight, but more work needed ahead of Artemis moon missions

Musk's 45-minute speech touched on the usual themes for his Red Planet updates, focusing on how to send a lot of cargo out there for eventual settlers. He noted that would take thousands of launches to do; for perspective, Musk said the company has completed 327 successful Falcon series launches and about 80 percent of those had reused boosters (a key factor in reducing cost.)

SpaceX is by far the most active launching entity on Earth, and Musk forecasts the company will send roughly 90 percent of orbital mass aloft this year compared to China's 6 percent (the second-largest entity.) 

Starship's next and fourth spaceflight attempt, expected to take place in May, aims to have the first stage of Super Heavy land "on essentially a virtual tower" in the Gulf of Mexico, Musk said. Once the company safely gets that done, they will consider using the launching area at Starbase, in south Texas, for future landings as soon as Flight 5. (Musk pegged the chances of success on Flight 4 at 80% or 90%.)

Musk also wants to perform two splashdowns of the upper stage of Starship in a row, in a controlled fashion, before sending it to Starbase on a future flight. "We do not want to rain debris over Mexico or the U.S.," he said. "My guess is probably next year when we will be able to reuse Starship."

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Overall, Musk plans for multiple Starship launches to take place this year, and suggests SpaceX will build an additional six spacecraft by the end of 2024. A new rocket factory for the company should be available in 2025, which would make production even faster. 

Future versions of Starship will include a "Starship 2" to send 100 tons of payload to low-Earth orbit and the 500-foot "Starship 3" for 200 or more tons. Bigger vehicles, Musk stressed, will mean fewer (four or five) refueling missions in low Earth orbit to get a Starship ready for the journey to Mars someday. 

Of these milestones, Musk said it would be "very much a success-oriented schedule." His speech did not mention the Federal Aviation Administration, which must approve each one of the launches, nor ongoing criticism of the environmental impact of Starship on the ecologically sensitive area near Starbase.

That impact may continue to grow, as Musk said it would take roughly 10 launches a day to send hundreds of vehicles to Mars every two years (when the planet is closest) to make a long-term settlement feasible. As for the number of Mars-bound people, that would be roughly a million folks, he said — that matches predictions he made at least as far back as 2017 . Musk also says he wants to get the settlement going "in 20 years." He said the same thing in 2011 .

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: [email protected].

Elizabeth Howell (she/her), Ph.D., is a staff writer in the spaceflight channel since 2022 covering diversity, education and gaming as well. She was contributing writer for Space.com for 10 years before joining full-time. Elizabeth's reporting includes multiple exclusives with the White House and Office of the Vice-President of the United States, an exclusive conversation with aspiring space tourist (and NSYNC bassist) Lance Bass, speaking several times with the International Space Station, witnessing five human spaceflight launches on two continents, flying parabolic, working inside a spacesuit, and participating in a simulated Mars mission. Her latest book, " Why Am I Taller ?", is co-written with astronaut Dave Williams. Elizabeth holds a Ph.D. and M.Sc. in Space Studies from the University of North Dakota, a Bachelor of Journalism from Canada's Carleton University and a Bachelor of History from Canada's Athabasca University. Elizabeth is also a post-secondary instructor in communications and science at several institutions since 2015; her experience includes developing and teaching an astronomy course at Canada's Algonquin College (with Indigenous content as well) to more than 1,000 students since 2020. Elizabeth first got interested in space after watching the movie Apollo 13 in 1996, and still wants to be an astronaut someday. Mastodon: https://qoto.org/@howellspace

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• Laz excessive superlatives; starship as it stands is problematic with the physical forces during launch,: it destroys it's own launch pad, scattering debris far and wide, the noise is harmful and damaging, and what about the carbon emissions ? a few test launches (failures) to develop the program....at what cost ? Do we need this ? What do we need to go to Mars for ? colonization ? go colonize Antarctica instead- it's far closer and far more habitable in comparison. Reply
• billslugg What you need to do is to become a "credentialed investor", go over the counter and buy some SpaceX stock, then float a stockholder proposal at the next annual meeting. Keep us appraised. Reply
• orsobubu The goal of 2026 for the year of the return (or, according to some, the conquest) of the moon, already postponed many times, seems unrealistic to me; still having to demonstrate the permanence in orbit, the refilling, the recovery of the first stage, the functionality of the starship capture mechanism upon re-entry, plus countless other critical issues... while 2025 is indicated as the year in which a few solutions will be carried out for the first time. Nasa also declares that it intends to see many missions completed successfully before starting artemis 3 (which is still a bit strange, given the vaunted success of the first attempts of many key apollo technologies on the moon, moreover 55 years ago), and this adds a whole series of problems of validating mind-boggling new systems in such a hostile environment. Nasa itself has postponed its objectives countless times - albeit much more limited - in view of artemis 3, such as the suits, the insertion of orion and starliner into orbit, etc. Reply

Laz said: excessive superlatives; starship as it stands is problematic with the physical forces during launch,: it destroys it's own launch pad, scattering debris far and wide, the noise is harmful and damaging, and what about the carbon emissions ? a few test launches (failures) to develop the program....at what cost ? Do we need this ? What do we need to go to Mars for ? colonization ? go colonize Antarctica instead- it's far closer and far more habitable in comparison.

• Unclear Engineer If humans don't manage to kill ourselves off by the time Antarctica has melted enough to be colonized, I am sure it will happen. Greenland much sooner. Reply
• HobartStinsonian There are huge problems to overcome before landing any long-term presence on Mars, or on the moon. Basic engineering: how much weight can the soil support? No idea? You can’t rely on any ship remaining level, not sinking down, until you get this figured out to high reliability. Second issue, what will the effect be of spilling fluids onto the soil to its compressive strength? Consider the soils have been dessicated for billions of years. Then a small spill of water or oil soaks in next to a structural support that sits on that soil. No idea? I bet the impact will be huge and devestating. Will Elon experiment with soils before they land a 500-ft Starship on that soil? The first equipment on moon & Mars needs to be heavy soil-excavating, and heavy mobile cranes. We’ll need to know how to make concrete-like foundations. And how deep do they need to be. Reply
• View All 7 Comments

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Elon Musk Delivers Speech About Mars Settlement Plan

"we're actually going to do this.", spreader of life.

Elon Musk has long made plenty of highfalutin claims about colonizing Mars. Now, he's delivered another speech about this off world fantasy of his, providing a roadmap to settling the Red Planet that at least seems "tangible," in Ars Technica's assessment .

In a presentation to SpaceX employees at the company's Starbase facility in Texas, Musk outlined the "overall path to making life multiplanetary."

He said that Falcon 9 is the primary launch vehicle for Earth's orbit, but that Starship — SpaceX's largest and most powerful rocket, though it hasn't yet managed to launch to orbit and then land without destructing — is the vehicle that will ultimately bring life to other worlds.

As the most powerful rocket in the world, Starship will be capable of ferrying the massive payloads to orbit necessary to carry out large scale Mars missions, Musk said. All this — bear with us as we elucidate some Musk philosophy here — so that we can preserve the "light of consciousness" in the cosmos.

"We need enough people and enough tonnage on Mars such that Mars can survive and continue consciousness even if something were to happen to Earth," Musk said.

Towering Achievements

But before any of that can happen, there's more rocket science to be done. Starship in particular has suffered major setbacks, like exploding during several of its test flights . Its third and most recent launch last month saw it reach space for the second time — its most successful run yet — but the rocket still didn't survive reentry and crashed into the ocean.

The next test, Musk told the audience, will involve landing the Starship booster on a "virtual tower" in the ocean. Then, in the fifth test, SpaceX will attempt to catch the booster with an actual launch tower in Starbase, cementing its capabilities.

"My guess is probably next year is when we will be able to reuse Starship," Musk said.

Overwhelming Output

Reusability is key. One-and-done rockets wouldn't be able to carry out the high volume of rocket launches — Musk estimates as high as thousands of ships every 26 months — to orbit, and then to Mars. So far, SpaceX has successfully conducted 327 Falcon launches, Ars notes.

It also drives down costs. In addition to making the massive rocket reusable, Musk wants to make it even bigger. A reusable "Starship 2" will s upposedly carry 100 tons of cargo to orbit, he said, and "Starship 3" will carry upwards of 200 tons. With such astonishing output, "Starship 3 will cost less per flight than Falcon 1," Musk claimed, as low as $2 to $3 million.

In total, SpaceX estimates that it will need to build several thousand vehicles per year and carry out 10 launches per day to send millions of tons of cargo to Mars.

"I think this is pretty doable," Musk said. "We're actually going to do this."

Of course, more than a few experts have cast doubt on Musk's Martian ambitions . As for Starship, it'll still have to prove itself capable of carrying out its role in NASA's mission, Artemis 3, to land on the Moon.

More on Mars: A Single Asteroid Caused Two Billion Craters on Mars, Scientists Claim

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Exploring Mars Together

NASA is reimagining the future of Mars exploration, driving new scientific discoveries, and preparing for humans on Mars.

Fascination with the Red Planet began with early astronomers in ancient Egypt. The Babylonians and the Greeks tracked the motion of the planet, while Galileo made the first telescope observations of Mars. Even today, when we look into the night sky and see the pale red dot above us, it inspires us to wonder about this nearby world.

NASA is reimagining the future of Mars exploration, driving new scientific discoveries, and preparing for humans on Mars. NASA’s Mars Exploration Program will focus the next two decades on its science-driven systemic approach on these strategic goals: exploring for potential life, understanding the geology and climate of Mars, and preparation for human exploration.

The Future of Mars Plan

NASA’s Mars Exploration Program is focusing on its future - delivering profound scientific investigation with a new strategic paradigm designed to send lower-cost, high-science-value missions and payloads to Mars at a higher frequency.

Industry Engagement

The Mars Exploration Program is conducting preliminary activities to engage industry in understanding both NASA and commercial capabilities and needs.

Mars Exploration Program

The Mars Exploration Program is a science-driven program that seeks to understand whether Mars was, is, or can be, a habitable world.

The Future of Mars Plan 2023-2043

How We Explore Mars

To discover the possibilities for life on Mars, NASA uses science-driven robotic missions enabling us to explore Mars in ways we never have before.

Mars 2020: Perseverance Rover

The Mars 2020 mission Perseverance rover is the first step of a roundtrip journey to return Mars samples to Earth. (2020-present)

Mars Sample Return

NASA and ESA are planning ways to bring the first samples of Mars material back to Earth for detailed study. (Launching NET 2027)

Curiosity Rover

Curiosity is investigating Mars to determine whether the Red Planet ever was habitable to microbial life. (2011-present)

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

MRO explores the planet's atmosphere and terrain from orbit. It is also a crucial communications hub.

Mars News and Features

NASA Scientists Re-Create Mars ‘Spiders’ in a Lab for First Time

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Mars: Facts

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• space travel

Elon Musk Just Revealed More About His Plan to Colonize Mars

W hen Elon Musk announced his plans last year to build a self-sustaining colony on Mars , many did not think his futuristic goal would or could be achieved in their lifetime.

But the SpaceX founder has now penciled in a date when he hopes the first human landings on Mars could take place—and it’s as early as 2024, just seven years away.

Speaking at the International Astronautical Congress in Adelaide, Australia, on Friday, Musk unveiled plans to send two unpiloted cargo missions to scout water sources and build a fuel plant on Mars in 2022. Two years after that, he plans to send four more flights: two more unpiloted cargo missions and two carrying astronauts.

The rocket system that will be used is known as BFR, which, according to CBS News , is a euphemism for “Big (fill-in-the-blank) Rocket.” Musk hopes that the system, which is around 106 meters tall, could one day carry people around Earth from city to city.

“That’s not a typo, although it is aspirational,” he told the conference, referring to the 2022 date. “I can’t think of anything more exciting than going out there and being among the stars,” he added.

Shortly before his presentation, Musk posted a photo on Instagram of SpaceX’s future Martian city, which he captioned “Mars City.”

“Opposite of Earth,” he wrote. “Dawn and dusk sky are blue on Mars and day sky is red.”

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Write to Kate Samuelson at [email protected]

• Forward Thinking

Elon Musk on Self-Driving Cars, Colonizing Mars, and Living in a Simulation

In a far-ranging conversation at the Code Conference, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk discussed his view on self-driving cars, sending spaceships to Mars, and why he thinks we're probably living in a simulation.

RANCHO PALOS VERDES, Calif.– In a far-ranging conversation at the Code Conference , Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk discussed his view on self-driving cars, sending spaceships to Mars, and why he thinks we're probably living in a simulation.

That last and most surreal point came toward the end of the conversation, in response to an audience question. Musk talked about how games have progressed from Pong to photo-realistic 3D games that millions are playing, and how we are beginning to see virtual reality games and simulations. If you assume any rate of improvement at all, games will become indistinguishable from reality at some point, certainly within the next 10,000 years, Musk said. According to him, the odds that we're in a "base reality" are one in billions, and the two most likely scenarios are a simulation indistinguishable from reality or that civilization will cease to exist. This is a conversation he said he's had so many times, he has now banned it from being discussed when he's in a hot tub.

The conversation, with conference hosts Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher, began with a discussion of SpaceX, which recently was able to land an orbital stage rocket on a ship in the ocean. Musk explained the differences between sending a ship into space and into orbit, and why it is so important to reuse the booster stage of the rocket, which he said accounted for about 70 percent of the cost, or about $35 million.

Among more immediate plans, he said SpaceX plans to re-fly one of the landed rocket boosters in three to four months; and by the end of the year, he hopes it can launch the Falcon Heavy, which is designed to provide 5 million pounds of thrust. This will mostly be used for satellite launches. Next year, he hopes to launch the first Dragon version 2, which he said would be able to ferry up to seven astronauts to the space station and be used as a general science delivery system anywhere in the solar system.

Musk said he will be presenting an architecture for Mars colonization at the IAC conference in March, with the goal of transporting large numbers of people and millions of tons of cargo to Mars, allowing eventually for a self-sustaining and growing city in Mars. In the meantime, he said, SpaceX will send a mission to Mars starting in 2018. Initially, this will just be cargo, but he said the company should be able to launch people in 2024 with arrival in 2025.

Like Jeff Bezos earlier in the conference , Musk rejected the concept of a "Plan B" for abandoning the Earth. Musk said he believed it is important for us to ultimately become a "multi-planet species," having life as we know it expand to the rest of solar system and eventually to other star systems. We need things that are inspiring, he said.

On self-driving and electric vehicles, he joked that there have been so many announcements, "I'm waiting for my mom to announce one." But overall, he said it was "encouraging to see all this activity" and that this was good for the industry.

Tesla's goal is to get to half million cars total by 2018 and a million cars a year by 2020, and that he can see a clear path to get there. For the Model 3, the company has booked around 400,000 consumer orders, which he said "caught us by surprise." The goal there is to make a great but affordable car, starting at $35,000, when the average cost for gasoline cars is about $32,000 in the US and the electric vehicle requires no gasoline and less maintenance.

"I don't think any of the car companies have made a really great electric car yet," he said of traditional car companies.

On the difficulties in making cars, "the sheer scale of automotive manufacturing is hard to appreciate," he said. Not only does Tesla have a huge assembly plan, it has a complex supply chain.

He noted that the "Gigafactory," where the company is producing batteries , will be the largest footprint building in the world when it is completed. There is a lot of misunderstanding about the different kinds of lithium-ion batteries; "we don't have a range issue," he insisted, since the Model S can go 300 miles. We could have a 400-mile range car today, he said, but what really matters is reducing the cost per unit of energy.

Musk suggested it will be odd to have a car without autonomy in the future. Google isn't likely to be a direct competitor to Tesla, but will be more likely to license its technology to other car companies, according to Musk. But he expects more direct competition from Apple. He noted that the car business is fragmented with a dozen significant car companies, none with more than about a 10 percent market share.

"Autonomous driving is a solved problem," Musk said, explaining that slow-speed urban driving and highway driving without barriers are easy; it's difficult to drive 30-40 miles per hour in an urban environment. We are less than two years away from complete autonomy, but regulatory approval will take at least another year.

Regarding Tesla's plans for a fully autonomous car, the company will have another event around the end of the year to talk more about it. He wouldn't give details, but said "we're going to do the obvious thing."

On the advantages and threats of artificial intelligence, where Musk has been outspoken about talking about the dangers, he said his full position would require quite a long explanation, but that he was concerned about certain directions AI could take that wouldn't be good for the future. "Not all AI futures are benign," he said.

He said he was particularly interested in democratizing AI power, and that's why he helped found Open.AI. He said this was a non-profit, but unlike most, would be developing technology at a fast pace with a high sense of urgency. He said he was worried about "the idea of living under a despot," whether a computer or the people controlling the computer; and worried that a single AI could result in a huge concentration of power. Asked which competitor he was talking about he said "I won't name a name, but there's only one." But he said Open.AI isn't about directly competing, but more about trying to increase the probability that the future would be good.

Asked by Mossberg if he worried that by making the AI open, it might get used by some bad actors, Musk talked about how if AI is widely distributed and we can link AI power to each individual's world, if somebody tried to do something terrible, the collective world of others could counteract it.

Musk said that if you think the advancements in AI have been "quite astonishing" and you assume any rate of advancement in AI, people will be left behind by a lot. "We would be like a housecat," he said, and that's the benign outcome. One solution he suggested might be a "Neural lace" interface to connect an AI to your cortical neurons using your veins and arteries, providing you a high-bandwidth neural interface with your digital self.

This would be an alternative to god-like AIs, he said, and though he isn't saying he would do this, "somebody's got to do it," he said.

On the Hyperloop project, he said he had an initial idea, but that originally he got it wrong. But, he said, with a lot of iteration he came up with something where the physics hangs together.

He said he thought it would be good to have safer, less costly, more convenient new transportation systems, and that the Hyperloop would be "better than a fast train that isn't as fast as what the Japanese built in the 80s."

But he said his plate is full running Tesla and SpaceX, so he just wanted to encourage anyone who is interested and give them support, but that he is not an investor in any of the companies working on it. If companies trying to do it now don't succeed, he said he might do something in the future, but said "I don't want to front-run them."

On other topics, he said he worried that there were a few too many talented entrepreneurs in the Internet space, and it might be better to have some of that talent in other industries.

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About Michael J. Miller

Former editor in chief.

Michael J. Miller is chief information officer at Ziff Brothers Investments, a private investment firm. From 1991 to 2005, Miller was editor-in-chief of PC Magazine ,responsible for the editorial direction, quality, and presentation of the world's largest computer publication. No investment advice is offered in this column. All duties are disclaimed. Miller works separately for a private investment firm which may at any time invest in companies whose products are discussed, and no disclosure of securities transactions will be made.

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Elon Musk Says SpaceX Could Land on Mars in 3 to 4 Years

By Kenneth Chang

Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX , said the company could land a spacecraft on Mars three to four years from now.

The suggestion was made as Mr. Musk appeared via videoconference on Thursday at the International Astronautical Congress in Azerbaijan, along with other tidbits on the progress of Starship, a gargantuan rocket that SpaceX is developing.

Quotable Quote: On getting to Mars.

“I think it’s sort of feasible within the next four years to do an uncrewed test landing there,” Mr. Musk told Clay Mowry, the president of the International Astronautical Federation, during a one-hour question-and-answer session.

A Year That Sums It Up: 2022.

Mr. Musk and SpaceX have a strong track record of achieving remarkable breakthroughs in spaceflight. That includes the routine landing and reuse of the booster stages of SpaceX’s current Falcon 9 rockets: The company has launched 70 times this year alone.

But Mr. Musk has another track record: taking far longer than predicted to achieve his goals.

Mr. Musk first unveiled his Mars rocket , then an even larger rocket called the Interplanetary Transport System, at an International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 2016. He predicted that SpaceX’s first uncrewed landing on the red planet would occur in 2022, followed by the first flight with people aboard in 2024.

So far, there has been one test flight of Starship , in April, which made it off the launchpad before it spun out of control and an order was given to detonate the vehicle several minutes into its flight.

A second Starship is ready, Mr. Musk has said. But SpaceX is still waiting for the Federal Aviation Administration to issue a new launch license , possibly as soon as this month.

On Thursday, Mr. Musk described some of the changes in the evolving design of Starship. On the second flight, the engines of the second stage will ignite before it separates from the booster. The maneuver, known as “hot staging,” can be tricky.

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Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster in Space - Live Position

Orbital elements.

Speed and Distance

Where is the Roadster now ?

This real-time simulation shows the current location of Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster (with Starman behind the wheel) that was launched into space on February 6th 2018 on top of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. Car's orbital elements are updated daily using NASA/JPL HORIZONS system and are used to calculate Roadster's current and future positions as well as upcoming close approaches to Mars and Earth.

In addition, it displays the planets, the bightest stars and 25,000 largest asteroids from the Main Asteroid Belt, each having its own orbital path. The sizes of the planets and asteroids are a bit exaggerated though, because otherwise they will be invisible (smaller than a single pixel).

The simulation runs in real-time and may look a bit static (because space is huge), however you can control its speed using the buttons under the orbital display.

Past and future events

• Jul 12, 2018 Crossing Mars orbit
• Nov 10, 2018 Farthest from the Sun (aphelion)
• Mar 28, 2019 Crossing Mars orbit
• Aug 15, 2019 Closest to the Sun (perihelion)
• Oct 07, 2020 Close approach to Mars
• Apr 22, 2035 Close approach to Mars
• Jan 11, 2047 Close approach to Earth
• Mar 19, 2050 Close approach to Earth
• Sep 05, 2052 Close approach to Mars
• Apr 15, 2067 Close approach to Mars
• Sep 17, 2084 Close approach to Mars
• Jan 01, 2085 Close approach to Earth

Memorabilia

NOTE: Current orbital characteristics are based on NASA/JPL HORIZONS solution #10 from March 27, 2018. Over time, trajectory prediction errors could increase more rapidly than the formal statistics indicate due to unmodeled solar pressure, thermal re-radiation, or outgassing accelerations that are not currently characterized but may exist.

elon-musk-mars-presentation

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Elon Musk Is Sending His Tesla Roadster to Mars

It will be the maiden voyage for spacex's falcon heavy rocket..

• Elon Musk said several times on Friday and Saturday that he plans to launch his red Tesla Roadster to Mars in 2018.
• A SpaceX employee and engineer also said Friday that the first Falcon Heavy payload had been announced, and that "this is legit".
• Musk reportedly walked back his comments Saturday, telling The Verge that he had "totally made it up."
• However, two spokespeople at SpaceX reportedly confirmed Musk's claim as true after Musk's backpedaling.

Update : Elon Musk does plan to launch his Tesla Roadster to Mars with SpaceX's first Falcon Heavy rocket launch, company officials reportedly confirmed on Saturday.

In a series of tweets on Friday night, Elon Musk said he plans to launch his red Tesla Roadster  to Mars orbit  in 2018.

Multiple sources now confirm Musk is serious, even if the tech mogul and billionaire had a good laugh or two at the expense of journalists over the weekend. Based on Musk's history and the reported capabilities of his new rocket, there's good reason to believe him.

In 2010, Musk  launched a wheel of cheese into orbit  during the maiden voyage of Dragon, a spaceship built by his aerospace company, SpaceX. And in March, Musk said he plans to launch "[s]illiest thing we can imagine" during the first flight of  Falcon Heavy . The rocket is SpaceX's biggest and newest launcher, and one that's capable of sending a payload of 37,000 pounds (or nearly 14 Tesla Roadsters' worth of mass) to Mars.

The inaugural Falcon Heavy launch will occur in January 2018, Musk confirmed this week.

"Payload will be my midnight cherry Tesla Roadster playing Space Oddity. Destination is Mars orbit," Musk  tweeted on Friday , referencing the song by David Bowie. "Will be in deep space for a billion years or so if it doesn't blow up on ascent."

Musk seemed to further confirm his plans in an impromptu question-and-answer session that evening.

"Just to reiterate, the payload for the first Falcon Heavy rocket will be a Tesla electric car, playing Space Oditty, heading for Mars,"  wrote  a user named J.C.

"Yes," Musk  answered .

Will it be a first-generation 2008 Roadster?

"Yeah," Musk  replied  to another user.

Another person asked about the midnight cherry-red paint on Musk's roadster.

"Red car for a red planet," Musk  replied .

SpaceX employees also appeared to confirm the claim. Joy Dunn, an engineer at the company, tweeted on Friday that the first Falcon Heavy payload had been announced. She  said  "this is going to be so awesome" and  later added , "oh this is legit and of course there will be cameras!"

Musk also initially confirmed his plans to The Verge on Friday, writing " it's so real " in email to the outlet. However, The Verge updated its story on Saturday, writing that, in a follow-up email, "Musk told us he 'totally made it up.'"

Business Insider reached SpaceX, though the company declined to comment on the record. We also contacted Musk directly, but he did not immediately reply. NASA also did not immediately answer our questions about Musk's stated plan to launch a car to Mars orbit.

Despite the back-and-forth, the claim appears to be legitimate. Musk reportedly told Eric Berger, Ars Technica's senior space editor, that the mission was " 100% real " after The Verge's story was updated, and Berger  later tweeted  that two SpaceX officials had also confirmed his claim.

"The Roadster to Mars payload is real," the second SpaceX official reportedly told Berger.

Later on, Phil Plait, an astronomer and writer, reported new details from Musk  at his blog , Bad Astronomy.

"No, it's not going to Mars. It's going  near  Mars," Plait wrote, specifically in what's called a Hohmann transfer orbit: an elliptical path that goes out to the orbit of Mars and back to Earth orbit on a near-endless loop (hence the "billion years or so" detail from Musk).

And apparently, Musk is also willing to consider launching other objects inside the Tesla suggested by the public.

"Just bear in mind that there is a good chance this monster rocket blows up," Musk reportedly told Plait in an email, "so I wouldn't put anything of irreplaceable sentimental value on it."

This story was originally published on Sat. Dec. 2, 2017, at 3:19 p.m. ET and later updated.

This post originally appeared on Business Insider. 

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• Car Culture

Here's how Elon Musk will get his Tesla Roadster to Mars

It'll take a SpaceX Falcon Heavy, but with a little luck, Musk's red Roadster could be the first car to get to Mars.

It's probably going to be a few decades yet before people are actually driving on Mars, but that's not stopping Elon Musk from showing the world how two of his companies will work hand-in-hand to get the first car to Mars -- even if it likely will never touch down. Musk just shared a video from SpaceX showing off the launch sequence of the company's Falcon Heavy rocket, which will lift off Tuesday. The Heavy, which consists of three of the company's Falcon 9 rockets joined together, will send very special cargo to Mars: a Roadster. 

The Roadster was Tesla's first car, essentially an electric conversion of a Lotus Elise that the company produced from 2008 until 2012. But the one going to Mars won't be any Roadster. It'll be Musk's own car, one that just happens to be red. It'll even have a passenger, a dummy named "Starman" at the wheel , looking super-casual with one hand hanging out of the window. If all goes well, the Roadster "will be in deep space for a billion years or so," Musk shared on Twitter -- "if it doesn't blow up on ascent." Given this will be the first full test launch of Falcon Heavy, blowing up is a real possibility. But with SpaceX's successes of late we wouldn't bet against the company. The good news is we can all see how it goes live: Here's how .

As to the next-generation Tesla Roadster , no word on when SpaceX might send those to Mars, but with a 0 - 60 time of just 1.9 seconds, lucky owners of the $250,000 electric supercar will be able to achieve escape velocity right here at home. 

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An unmanned Falcon 9 rocket on a resupply mission to the International Space Station  is launched by SpaceX from Cape Canaveral, Florida in January.

Elon Musk, A Man of Impossible Dreams, Wants To Colonize Mars

The visionary creator of SpaceX and the Tesla wants to bring solar power to the masses, people to Mars, and, maybe, retire there himself.

Elon Musk has been compared with Thomas Edison and Steve Jobs. Doing the impossible—whether creating the Tesla electric car or launching rockets with SpaceX—is second nature to him. He was also the co-founder of PayPal.

His passion for innovation has made him one of the richest men in America, with an estimated worth of $10 billion. At the same time, he has been criticized for his hard-driving methods as a boss and for some of his more outlandish ideas, like establishing a human colony on Mars.   Musk's   third attempt to resupply the International Space Station ended in   failure   Sunday   when the rocket exploded just after launch .

In Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX and the Quest For a Fantastic Future , biographer Ashlee Vance gives us a warts-and-all glimpse inside the fantastical world of America’s most mercurial entrepreneur.

Talking from his home in Mountain View, California, he describes how a grim childhood in South Africa underlies Musk’s personality; how the idea of colonizing Mars is Musk’s overriding obsession; and how the Hyperloop may make it possible to travel from Los Angeles to San Francisco in thirty minutes.

Elon Musk . It’s an odd name. Give us the backstory.

It is an odd name, isn’t it? (Laughs) He was born in South Africa but his roots are stretched in different directions. Half his family was from North America—the United States and Canada; the other half was from Britain and then South Africa. The name Elon comes from his mother’s side of the family, the American side. His great grandfather was John Elon Haldeman, so it’s a family name. The Musk side comes from his Dad.

You write that suffering is Musk’s default mode. Tell us how his childhood in South Africa shaped him.

It was pretty miserable. On the surface it looks okay.   His Dad was an engineer and was pretty well off, so Elon was never in need of money. Quite the opposite. He had a lot provided for him.

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But his parents got divorced when he was pretty young. He spends time with his Mom, then goes and lives with his Dad. They have a very fractured relationship. Elon talks about his father playing him psychologically.

As a kid, he consumed tons of science fiction books and was very smart. But he was a bit of a know-it-all, so not many people outside of his family liked him. He also got bullied at school quite badly. One time he got kicked in the head and had to go to the hospital for a week.

He was a loner, who didn’t seem to have any friends. This continues to play out in later life. It’s a bit of a cliché, but in many ways his life has been this call for attention and to prove he’s special.

He called me one day...and said, 'Look, I can either make life really miserable for you and start telling people never to speak to you, or I’ll cooperate with the book.' Ashlee Vance

Is this an authorized biography? How hard was it to get access?

It was hard. It’s not authorized in the sense that he did not commission it or get to see it. I had done a cover story on him for Business Week . I was not an Elon fan, but I ended finding him much more interesting than I had given him credit for. His companies were finally hitting on all cylinders. So I told him I wanted to do a book. He turned me down at first. I then spent 18 months interviewing hundreds upon hundreds of people;eventually,I wore him down.

He called me at home one day after those 18 months, and said, “Look, I can either make life really miserable for you and start telling people never to speak to you, or I’ll cooperate with the book.”   He asked for some control. He wanted to do footnotes and read it before it came out. I wouldn’t let him do that. But in the end he agreed to do a bunch of interviews.

Any discussion of Musk has to begin with SpaceX . It was beset by teething troubles, wasn’t it? Put us on the ground on Kwajelain at blast-off.

It’s nuts! [Laughs] It should not exist at all! Usually it’s governments that try to do these things.

Here’s a private guy, who didn’t know much about rocket technology. He’s reading textbooks, like Rocketry 101, to come up to speed. They start the company in Los Angeles. Elon sets out, like he would with an Internet start-up, and hires tons of smart, hardworking, young engineers. Some of them knew what they were doing. Most of them had no idea. They were just kind of good at doing stuff.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk unveils the company’s new manned spacecraft, the Dragon V2. It will ferry up to seven astronauts in low-Earth orbit.

But they set out to build a rocket. Then they can’t find anywhere to launch it. [Laughs] The sites in Florida and California were not especially welcoming to the idea of some millionaire, who had never done this before, sending off rockets. The competition, Lockheed and Boeing, didn’t want to have anything to do with him.

So they end up going to this place Kwajelain , this island in the Pacific where the US military used to do Star Wars stuff, shooting down missiles. It’s like Gilligan’s island for space [Laughs] They build showers and barbeque pits and 200 SpaceX engineers live there for two years with rockets exploding over their heads.

Today SpaceX is probably the most successful company in Elon’s empire. It’s not space tourism. It’s taking satellites up for countries and for companies and resupplying the international space station. They have a backlog of about eight billion dollars in orders over the next five years. They fly every three weeks or so. And they’re getting very close to reusable rockets and other cool stuff.

He told me once he wants to die on Mars, just not on impact. Ashlee Vance

The words Tesla and Musk go hand in hand. Vaclav Smil , a prominent writer on manufacturing and energy, dissed the Tesla car as “nothing but an utterly overhyped toy for showoffs.” Or is it the car of tomorrow?

[Laughs] Vaclav has some fun things to say about Elon in my book. There is a case to be made that, okay, Elon did not invent the electric car; and the Tesla is very expensive.

Most people pay about $100,000 for the model S. But I think it does stand on its own as an important invention, mostly because of the software it uses. The electric car part is key. But they have advanced the state of automotive software dramatically. It’s got this 17-inch touchscreen that handles all of the car’s functions. There’s no physical buttons.

Elon Musk, innovator and visionary, is one of the richest men in America, with an estimated worth of $10 billion.

When you go to sleep at night a new feature gets added. In many ways, your car gets better instead of worse over time, which is a whole new concept. The company’s also building this Gigafactory in Nevada, which will be a battery factory on a scale we’ve never seen before.

The goal is to get the price down to the point where it would not only make electric cars more affordable. It would make things like home storage systems for solar panels more affordable.

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How does he compare with those other titans of technology, bill gates and steve jobs.

They have certainly had the bigger consumer hits so far, and are more household   names.   Elon still like has a lot to prove. But if he’s the guy who brings solar to the masses, with the third company in his empire, Solar City ; or turns the electric car into a real thing that has an impact on global warming, it would be hard not to consider that a profound achievement.

In many ways, he is running counter to the prevailing attitudes of Silicon Valley, which are focussed on consumer products and apps and things like that. He is tackling things that the Valley has been more traditionally known for: really hard, manufacturing stuff, like the semiconductor or all the breakthroughs in physics that took place here. He harkens back to a previous era in Silicon Valley   and that’s what drew me to him.

Musk is chief executive of Tesla Motors. Model S P85d of the electric car was displayed at the Shanghai International Automobile Industry Exhibition this past April.

A former employee is on record as saying Musk’s “worst trait is a complete lack of loyalty or human connection.” His sacking of long-term aide de camp, Mary Beth Brown, suggests that is true. Do you agree?

I do on a lot of levels. If you’ve seen the movie Iron Man, Elon gets compared to the Tony Stark character. His loyal assistant is Pepper Potts, and Mary Beth Brown was his Pepper Potts. She spent about 14 years working for him and essentially had no life of her own. One day, she asks for a raise. Elon says, ‘I’m gonna see how hard your job is, why don’t you take a couple weeks off?’

When she comes back, he’s like, ‘I think I can pretty much do your job,’ which anyone who knows what she did would think is like ludicrous. So she gets outraged and leaves the company. This was the scandal of all scandals at SpaceX and Tesla.

He’s obsessively worried whether the human species will continue. He gets emotional and weeps about that kind of stuff Ashlee Vance

But I think he has this strange kind of empathy. He does not care about your day-to-day life. In the course of all the time we spent together, he never once asked me if I had a family or anything like that. But he has this empathy for mankind. He’s obsessively worried whether the human species will continue. He gets emotional and weeps about that kind of stuff. A lot of people say he is on the autism spectrum, that he has no emotion or feeling for people. I don’t think that’s true. I think he does feel things deeply.

Musk’s big obsession is to establish a human colony on Mars . Has he been reading too many comic books?

You could definitely argue that. When he was a kid, he consumed all that sci-fi stuff, but he took it as a calling instead of just a story. He told me once he wants to die on Mars, just not on impact. [Laughs] Another time he told me he has this vision of himself retiring there.

I know for a fact that the guys within SpaceX already have a design for the engines and the rocket that would get to Mars. Knowing the caliber of talent there, I trust that that part is feasible if not probable. The colonizing part? That’s still an enormous question.

Tesla is building a huge factory to build batteries outside Reno, Nevada.

Tell us about his latest projects, like the Hyperloop and space Internet.

The Hyperloop is this crazy fast monorail. You have a tube with these pods inside it. He wants them to go 800 miles an hour on a bed of air, so you could get between San Francisco and LA in half an hour. It’s like an indictment of the high-speed rail that California’s trying to build.

The idea behind the Space Internet is to surround the earth with thousands of small satellites and beam the Internet down from space. Half the world’s population can’t get access to fiber optic Internet. They have slow, crappy Internet service. If you had a terminal where you could tap into these space satellites, you’d bring high speed Internet to the whole world.

What do you think are the defining traits of Musk’s success?

I don’t know it’s a recipe you’d want to recommend for your kid. A good chunk of it, I think, comes from being tortured in your youth. It’s something we see play out in other guys like Elon: having something to prove and trying to show people that you are fantastic.

The more practical thing is that he is incredibly good at prioritizing the things in his life that matter, like making a colony on Mars or solving global warming. He’s relentless in pursuing these goals. I was also inspired not just by Elon, but the people around him at SpaceX and Tesla. It gave me hope that humans really can do amazing things when they set their minds to it.

Simon Worrall curates Book Talk. Follow him on Twitter or at simonworrallauthor.com.

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1 st Moscow Solar System Symposium, 14/10/2010, IKI, Moscow

Sep 19, 2014

170 likes | 407 Views

1 st Moscow Solar System Symposium, 14/10/2010, IKI, Moscow. Development of the Sub-millimeter Instrument onboard the Japanese Mars Orbiter. Yasuko Kasai 1 , *Takeshi Kuroda 2 , Hideo Sagawa 1 , Paul Hartogh 3 , Donal Murtagh 4 , MELOS SMM Sounder Team.

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• water vapor
• smm instrument
• mars smm sounder detects

Presentation Transcript

1st Moscow Solar System Symposium, 14/10/2010, IKI, Moscow Development of the Sub-millimeter Instrument onboard the Japanese Mars Orbiter Yasuko Kasai1, *Takeshi Kuroda2, Hideo Sagawa1, Paul Hartogh3, Donal Murtagh4, MELOS SMM Sounder Team 1National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Japan2Institiute of Space and Astronautical Science, JAXA, Japan 3Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Germany 4Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden

Japanese Mars Exploration Plan (MELOS) Mars Exploration with Lander-Orbiter Synergy —Why does Mars appear Reddish? Why is the current Martian surface covered by the hematite? To answer this question, we have to understand the evolution of Martian atmosphere, the current climate system, and the interaction between the surface and atmosphere. Japanese new Mars mission, MELOS, will carry on dedicated explorations on - Meteorology - Atmospheric Escape - Interior Structure & Surface Environment.

Preliminary Mission Design MELOS-1 - 1-2 Orbiter(s) and 1 (or more) Lander(s). - detail of the orbiters: trace the global atmospheric motion from near-apocenter (8 Martian radius) MELOS-1, a meteorological orbiter, targets the global mapping of atmospheric motions with multi-wavelengths imaging cameras from an equatorial elliptic orbit (heritages from Planet-C/Akatsuki). MELOS-2 explores the atmospheric escape with in-situ measurements from a near Mars polar orbit by using plasma instruments (heritages from Nozomi). LANDERS MELOS-2 In-situ measurement of escaping atmosphere - Now planned to launch in 2019-2022.- Collaborate with USA & European Mars 2010/20's missions.

Concept of MELOS SMM instrument • Concept study has been started in 2008 : focusing on the water cycle& atmospheric circulationsciences. • 2 frequency bands (500 GHz and 600 GHz) •  to observe different opacity H2O lines (weak H2O line sounds deeper altitudes) • Chirp-Transform spectrometer  clean baselines • Polarization  to observe thermal property of the surface • 40 – 50 cm-diameter antenna, Passive cooling system • Roughly estimated mass & power = 10-20 kg & 50 W Developed in an international collaboration: - Antenna & quasi-optics : Japan - Local Oscillator, Amp., Mixer : Sweden - Spectrometer : Germany

Concept of MELOS SMM instrument Japan JEM/SMILES (NICT/JAXA) Balloon SMILES (NICT) 2019-2022 High sensitivity, high frequency, large (500kg) Mars SMM Sounder Small (10–30 kg) Europe Odin/SMR (Sweden SSC) Techniques for light receivers with high frequency ROSETTA/MIRO (NASA/JPL, MPS) USA MLS (NASA/JPL)

Characteristics of SMM observations • SMM domain is a treasure of the molecular lines! A short list of the “potential targets” for the Martian atmospheric research using the SMM wavelength (300 – 900 GHz). • Atmospheric state (Temperature, Pressure): CO, CO isotopes • Water-cycle: H2O, H2O isotope (HDO, H218O, …) • Photochemistry: H2O2, HO2, O3, O3 isotopes, HCl, ClO, • (ClO)2, OCS, H2CO, etc. • Evolution/Escape of the atmosphere: HDO/H2O • Volcanic activity: SO2, SO • Evidence of life: H2S, NO, NO2, N2O, NH3

Characteristics of SMM observations • SMM domain is a treasure of the molecular lines! A short list of the “potential targets” for the Martian atmospheric research using the SMM wavelength (300 – 900 GHz). • Atmospheric state (Temperature, Pressure): CO, CO isotopes • Water-cycle: H2O, H2O isotope • Photochemistry: H2O2, HO2, O3, O3 isotopes, HCl, ClO, • (ClO)2, OCS, H2CO, etc. • Evolution/Escape of the atmosphere: HDO/H2O • Volcanic activity: SO2, SO • Evidence of life: H2S, NO, NO2, N2O, NH3 Example of the spectral atlas at SMM domain based on the HITRAN08 [Rothman et al. 2009] database

Characteristics of SMM observations • Very high frequency resolution spectroscopy (n/Dn ~ 10 7–8) with the Heterodyne technique • Pressure-broadened line shapes of molecular emission can be spectrally resolved in the measured spectra. • Sensitive to the vertical profiles of the molecular concentration. 1 mbar [75 km] 0.01 mbar [60 km] 0.1 mbar [40 km] • The frequency of the molecular lines are shifted (~100 kHz at 500 GHz band) due to Doppler shift caused by the line-of-sight velocity of the wind. • Such a small shift can be detected; i.e. the wind can be directly measured ! 1 mbar [20 km] Typical line shape of Martian molecular line. The line shape varies depends on the pressure. Observed spectrum is the integral of the different line shaped spectra along the line-of-sight.  SMM instrument is a very effective tool to investigate the Martian atmospheric chemistry & dynamics.

Complementary to other instruments Plasma Instruments SMM instrument (atmospheric escape) Ground-based Obs. - Monitoring, Calibration - Wind at upper mesosphere - D/H, 13C/12C profiles - Thermal property of the surface layer. - Evaporation/Condensation of H2O ice. - T(z), Wind, Compositions at 0–120 km; even under the dusty condition. - Complement the detection of minor species; provide 2D maps of minor species. IR Spectrometer Lander, Rover Vis/NIR imagers

e.g. SMM & IR spectrometer SMM : Can measure Winds directly [km] 200 Possible to observe up to 130 km (depends on the species). Observe averaged distributions of H2O2, HO2, etc. Unaffected by dust opacities. Thermosphere （atmos. escape) 160 [mbar] 10 -6 120 IR : Can observe CH4 10 -3 80 SMM (limb Scan) SMM (nadir) Better spatial resolution. Better sensitivity to minor species. Solar occultation can be used as the reference measurements. 0.01 IR spectrometer 0.1 40 1 Boundary layer 0 100 150 200 Temperature [K]

Simulations of nadir/limb obs. geometries Limb geometry Observes the molecular lines as emission against the cold sky. Advantages: Winds. Longer line-of-sight for weak lines. Sensitivity to higher altitudes with a better vertical resolution than the nadir geometry. Spectra from different pointing altitudes brightness temperature frequency Nadir geometry Spectra from different season Observes the molecular lines as absorption against the surface emission. Advantages: Horizontal mapping, Long data integration for minor species. brightness temperature frequency

Scientific Targets Mapping of water vapor distributions by MEx-SPICAM Daytime column density, by MGS-TES [Trokhimovskiy et al., 2008] [Smith, 2004] An example of vertical distributions [ppm] from solar occultation by MEx–SPICAM • A lot of daytime column density data have been obtained by the infrared observations from Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Express, but we still do not have the data for changes of density by local time (i.e. diurnal variation) • For the vertical we still have few observational data, from submm telescopes and MEx-SPICAM (observed local time coverage is limited). • Hygropause (cut-off height of water vapor) is a key to investigate the transport of water. (Favorable meridional transport if higher) [Fedorova et al., 2009]

Scientific Targets Detection of the HDO/H2Oratio • The D/H ratio is a key to investigate the climate change (escape of atmosphere) on Mars. • Deuterium is heavier than normal hydrogen and difficult to escape to space, so the water from old surface ice or underground should keep lower D/H ratio. (Is there underground water on Mars?) • According to the ground-based infrared observations, D/H ratio on Mars very large variances in space and time, from 2 to 8 times as SMOW (mean terrestrial ocean value). • Ground-based infrared observations can detect only daytime column densities. • The Mars SMM Sounder enables the detailed 3-D mapping of the D/H ratio for day and night. Distributions of the HDO/H2O ratio observed from a ground-based infrared telescope[Villanueva et al., 2008]

Scientific Targets Detection of HOx：Key of keeping CO2stable? Possible catalytic cycles to keep CO2 • CO2 divides into CO and O by the photo-dissociation of ultraviolet rays, but the recombination reaction is spin forbidden. Thus after about 6000 years all CO2 should be converted into CO + O. • However in reality there is about 95 % of CO2 and only ~900 ppm of CO. • →What saves the Martian atmosphere and climate? Is OH a catalyst to keep CO2? • The Mars SMM Sounder detects the minor radical species, and try to investigate the mechanism. Distribution of the OH production rate in the MAOAM chemistry GCM

Scientific Targets Mapping of wind velocity • There are the observational data of Doppler wind velocities from the ground-based SMM telescopes, but they are sparse (horizontal resolution of ~300km, vertical resolution of ~20km). • Limb-scan from the near Mars orbit (~ 1000 km altitude) enables the direct wind measurements within an error of ~5 m/s (at 40-70km altitude, lower accuracy at lower atmosphere). • →First, epoch-making wind mapping of Martian atmosphere Doppler wind at ~50km height by PdBI telescope [Moreno et al., 2009] Simulations of the wind velocity measurements limb-scanned between 0-120km altitude using 12CO and 13CO (antenna radius of 40cm, from apocenter (8 Mars radius), 100 seconds integration)

Summary • A new Japanese Mars mission, MELOS with 1-2 orbiter(s) and 1 (or more) lander(s), is planned to be launched in 2019-2022. • We propose a Sub-millimerer Sounder onboard the MELOS meteorological orbiter, with 2 frequency bands (500 and 600 GHz) and roughly estimated mass/power of 10-20 kg/ 50 W. • We are investigating the 4-dimensional (space+time) chemistry and dynamics of Martian atmosphere through the Nadir and Limb soundings with very high frequency resolution spectroscopy (Heterodyne technique). • Our main targets to observe are the water vapor including the HDO/H2O ratio, minor radical species and wind velocity. The instrument is also sensitive to the sulfur compounds and NH3 (detecting the upper limits).

Thank you for your attention We appreciate any comments on the scientific requirements, any other interesting targets, new collaborations, etc. All the input will improve and optimize the instrumental design and bring a fruitful science! feel free to contact: [email protected]

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