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Starship Mars Surface Power

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I was doing some calculations around solar panels on Mars surface and thought I should keep it for future reference Electrolysis: 50 kwh produces 1 kg Hydrogen and 8kg Oxygen 2000kwh produces 40kg Hydrogen and 320kg Oxygen 1000t of Oxygen takes 3125 hours to produce 130 Days * 6 hours Peak Sunlight = 781 Days (approx two Earth Years) Produces 125t of Hydrogen Liquify CO2 from atmosphere Sabatier Power Requirement Assumptions 570w per metre squared insolar at Mars surface 39% Solar Cell efficiency (space panel) 230w per meter squared of Solar Cells Normal Commercial Solar Panel Dimensions (1.9mx1.3m) (2.47m2) (40mm Depth) 25kg Square that fits in a 9m diameter Starship Cargo bay has an area of 63m2 Power Specifications 1,000,000w (1Gw) divided by 230w/pm2 needs 4400m2 of Solar Cells or 1781 normal commercial sized panels 25kg each or 44t for all the panels If you create the panels in such a way as to maximise space in the quare you can fit about 25 panels worth flat in that squ...
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Should they re-use Starship HLS

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  Re-using Starship HLS The case for: Starship Human Landing System (HLS) is going to be one of the most ambitious and complex spacecraft ever devised. Easily the largest thing ever sent to interplanetary space or the Moon by Man. The cost of Starship is hotly debated and I am not going to be able to answer it completely accurately here, but I can give a range. Starship HLS is going to be vastly more expensive than Starship and my numbers are going to be necessarily fuzzier. Starship itself uses 6 Raptor engines, widely reported to be about 1.5 million each (though the goal is to reach $250K), over 400 have already been made. That equals $9 million in engines. Starship is made from Stainless steel and 120 tons of 301 Stainless Steel come to about $1.30 per kg, we can guess that the hull and tanks cost about $200,000 in Steel, obviously the robots and labour add to the cost but I can only go by the material costs. Large Batteries, Electric and Hydraulic Actuators, wiring, Heat Shiel...
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Ever wondered how far Starship can go without refueling?

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Calculations are made using current released Raptor 2 specs and Super Heavy and Starship estimations Raptor 2 ISP SL: 327-347 s ISP 2.26Mn-2.53Mn ISP Vac: 363-365 s ISP 2260000 / 327 / 9.8 = 705kgs 2530000 / 363 / 9.8 = 711kgs Thrust: 230t Weight: 1.6t Starship Block 1, 50t Cargo to 200km LEO (RTLS) 1st Stage Super Heavy Fuel: 3400t Boostback and Landing Fuel: 600t Residuals: 40t Dry Mass: 275t ISP: 337s ISP   327S + 347S / 2 Total Mass: 3675 DeltaV: 2613.58 m/s 2nd Stage Starship Fuel: 1200t Landing Fuel: 25t Residuals: 12t Dry Mass: 125t ISP: 356 s ISP [1041 (3x347) + 1095 (3x365] Mass at Stage Separation: 1375t DeltaV: 6527.16 m/s Totals Total Mass at launch: 5050t -------------------------------------------  S1             S2 2613.58 + 6527.16 + 416 (26' inclination of Boca Chica) =  9556.74 m/s ------------------------------------------- Starship Block 2, Raptor 2, 50t Cargo to 200km LEO (RTLS) 1st Stage Sup...
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SpaceX Super Heavy SSTO and Starship Depot

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  Booster 7 in testing It may surprise some people but it's kind of known within the online space community that the SpaceX Super Heavy Booster, at least on paper, has the numbers to be a Single Stage To Orbit (SSTO) vehicle. I am pretty amazed by this and wanted to understand it a bit better. So here are the DeltaV calculations (I have used where I can reported figures for Raptor 2 and Starship/Super Heavy). Raptor 2, 327/363 ISP, 230t thrust, 1.6t weight, Super Heavy 3650t, 3400t fuel. If you add the gravity boost for launching east (460ms) you can see the booster alone can make Low Earth Orbit (LEO). Of course it would need modifications like a nosecone to actually achieve this which will add some weight. It does not have the reserves to land back on Earth from orbital velocity. Which is good because it also does not have the necessary shielding or flight profile as it was never intended to land from orbit. This means it's an expended launcher.  We can actually make these n...
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