RocketSTEM Issue #14 - March 2017 | Page 48

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