Proposed 'Red Dragon' Mars Sample Return by 2022.

[Frozen_Heart]

I think the idea is that it is already developed and having a relatively standardised design cuts cost. Rather than developing a lander from scratch which would take a very long time and lots of additional money.

SpaceX goes for standardisation and cost rather than actual effectiveness for the job.

[passinglurker]

If only they'd make it a race between the JPL lander and red dragon

[Kryten]

If only they'd make it a race between the JPL lander and red dragon

JPL is supposed to take cached samples via a small pickup rover, with the caching rover being built now. It's going to be a slow process, but provide a much side variety of samples with better understood context than the random nearby lumps of soil this seems to be going for. If researchers just wanted lumps of Martian material selected randomly and with no context, they'd be fine with Martian meteorites.

[cryogen]

Here's a graphic for mass flows, comparing JPL's concept against Red Dragon. I made it myself so it's certainly full of mistakes.

In the JPL concept, the Mars sample is thrown into Mars orbit, where it's captured by an orbiting spacecraft. This saves a significant amount of fuel, since the propellant for earth-return is held in orbit, and isn't wastefully landed on the surface.

Red Dragon has a huge amount of deadweight in the Dragon capsule, and I have no idea why. Maybe cuts development cost?

In Red Dragon, the earth-return vehicle isn't capable of reentry, so it goes to high earth orbit (with a lunar gravity assist). Another spacecraft has to capture it in HEO.

The JPL concept has a total TMI throw of 8.0 tons, and uses two Atlas V 551's . Red Dragon takes 10.5 tons to TMI -- so it's actually not that much worse. (This excludes the caching rover, which is probably going to be Mars 2020).

Sources:

http://spirit.as.utexas.edu/~fiso/telecon/Gonzales-Lemke_9-9-15/

http://sites.nationalacademies.org/SSB/SSB_059331

Edited September 18, 2015 by cryogen

[passinglurker]

JPL is supposed to take cached samples via a small pickup rover, with the caching rover being built now. It's going to be a slow process, but provide a much side variety of samples with better understood context than the random nearby lumps of soil this seems to be going for. If researchers just wanted lumps of Martian material selected randomly and with no context, they'd be fine with Martian meteorites.

I see. This is probably why This plan to catch air and dust samples in aerogel didn't get very far either.

I don't suppose the sample rover would just supply both return vehicles? they have roughly two years to spend on mar together before the return window how long would it take to pack some samples?

[fredinno]

Here's a graphic for mass flows, comparing JPL's concept against Red Dragon. I made it myself so it's certainly full of mistakes.

https://i.imgur.com/1LGzdGt.png

http://i.imgur.com/dvCaHk8.png

http://i.imgur.com/xHSF2l5.png

In the JPL concept, the Mars sample is thrown into Mars orbit, where it's captured by an orbiting spacecraft. This saves a significant amount of fuel, since the propellant for earth-return is held in orbit, and isn't wastefully landed on the surface.

Red Dragon has a huge amount of deadweight in the Dragon capsule, and I have no idea why. Maybe cuts development cost?

In Red Dragon, the earth-return vehicle isn't capable of reentry, so it goes to high earth orbit (with a lunar gravity assist). Another spacecraft has to capture it in HEO.

The JPL concept has a total TMI throw of 8.0 tons, and uses two Atlas V 551's . Red Dragon takes 10.5 tons to TMI -- so it's actually not that much worse. (This excludes the caching rover, which is probably going to be Mars 2020).

Sources:

http://spirit.as.utexas.edu/~fiso/telecon/Gonzales-Lemke_9-9-15/

http://sites.nationalacademies.org/SSB/SSB_059331

Probably the JPL returns more samples to Earth, and has other Mars equipments from the looks of it-

Either way, this thread has convinced me Red Dragon is probably not worth it, even with the lower R&D cost. Either way, 2.5 T is pretty major. That's another Zenit launch,in terms of equivilance.

[magnemoe]

One problem with red dragon is sterilization to not bring earth life to Mars.

Dragon is not designed for sterilization, this might be more work than the return rocket

Another issue is why do you need an Falcon heavy for the sample catching?

Its basically an deep space probe with an return capsule and a system to grab the ERV and transfer the sample to capsule, this system can be dropped before returning.

Edited September 18, 2015 by magnemoe