Submitted via IRC for Bytram
In recent weeks, there have been rumors that SpaceX is no longer planning to send an uncrewed version of its Dragon spacecraft to Mars in 2020, or later. Now those rumors about the Red Dragon concept have been largely confirmed.
The company had planned to use the propulsive landing capabilities on the Dragon 2 spacecraft—originally developed for the commercial crew variant to land on Earth—for Mars landings in 2018 or 2020. Previously, it had signed an agreement with NASA to use some of its expertise for such a mission and access its deep-space communications network.
On Tuesday, however, during a House science subcommittee hearing concerning future NASA planetary science missions, Florida Representative Bill Posey asked what the agency was doing to support privately developed planetary science programs. Jim Green, who directs NASA's planetary science division, mentioned several plans about the Moon and asteroids, but he conspicuously did not mention Red Dragon.
After this hearing, SpaceX spokesman John Taylor didn't return a response to questions from Ars about the future of Red Dragon.
So the real question becomes how DO they plan to land it?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by WizardFusion on Thursday July 20 2017, @10:04AM (1 child)
Landing is easy, not crashing is the hard part.
(Score: 4, Funny) by JNCF on Thursday July 20 2017, @05:04PM
There once was a fellow named Musk
who said, "we must go Mars or bust!
And if our ship crashes,
when we go to ashes
our ashes will go to red dust!"