I
t has long been known that SpaceX’s
long term goal is the colonization of
Mars. Everyone from the engineers
to their CEO, Elon Musk, dreams of a
world away from home. In September of
2016, we got a glimpse of how SpaceX
is going to get there. At last, the long
rumored Interplanetary Transport System
was finally announced during the 67th
International Astronautical Conference in
Guadalajara, Mexico.
During his keynote address, “Mak-
ing Humans a Multiplanetary Species,”
Musk revealed the first official details of
SpaceX’s next big leap in technology:
the Interplanetary Transport System, or ITS
for short. It’s difficult to oversimplify it as a
system because, as Musk noted, “every-
thing is a system, including your dog.”
SpaceX plans on travelling to Mars, and
hopefully other planets, using four pieces
of hardware: the Booster, the Interplan-
etary Spaceship, the Refueling Craft and
the Propellant Production plant. SpaceX
has not released any details on the Pro-
pellant Production Plant; however the
chemical process is well documented
and relatively simple.
The pieces of launch hardware (the
booster and two spaceships) will be con-
structed using a specialized carbon fiber
designed to be non-interactive with the
propellant inside. This will cut down on
weight as it will allow the superstructure
and the tank to all be one piece.
How will the whole system actually
work, and how will it all fit together?
Here’s how the brilliance and ingenuity
of SpaceX come into play.
First the passengers and supplies
can be loaded onto the Interplan-
etary Spacecraft, which will sit atop the
Booster. At the base of the Booster are
42 Raptor engines – the next generation
of SpaceX’s engines – each contribut-
ing 3,000 kilo-newtons (7,000 pounds) of
liftoff force. As the rocket burns through
its cryogenic liquid methane and oxygen
fuel, the booster will have a total liftoff
thrust of 128 mega-newtons (28,000,000
pounds). That’s more than three times
the power of the Saturn V, whose five F-1
engines provided a liftoff force of only 35
mega-newtons (7,800,000 pounds).
Simply because of the ITS’s sheer size,
the Saturn V is the only vehicle that has
ever operated that’s even remotely
comparable, and still, it’s a stretch to
refueling on Enceladus