elon musk‘s aerospace company spaceX has requested NASA to provide it with potential landing sites on mars for its starship super-spaceship. starship is spaceX’s next-generation spaceship meant to work within both earth and lunar orbit and eventually mars.

NASA assists spaceX by recommending potential landing sites on mars

an artists’s conception shows spaceX’s mars civilization

 

 

humanmars.net broke the story with the tweet: ‘images labelled ‘candidate landing site for spaceX #starship in arcadia region were found in latest data release from @hirise’. the mars reconnaissance orbiter hirise camera database includes a small group of images labeled as ‘candidate landing site for spaceX starship.’

 

 

 

despite spaceX remaining years from launching a mars mission, spaceX’s hirise images indicate it is interested in the arcadia region of mars, which has both volcanoes and large open plains. it makes sense as the starship would need a predominantly flat areas to land.

 

another focus of NASA’s reconnaissance campaign is a mountainous area just west of arcadia planitia in mars’ northern hemisphere known as phlegra montes. it is thought to hold significant stores of water ice in buried glaciers, but the terrain is more rugged.

 

NASA is focused on the moon as a launch for mars missions, but the space agency has already considered mars locations for human exploration. in 2015, a NASA workshop group proposed 47 possible landing spots.

 

video courtesy of NASA

 

 

spaceX is building the ‘starship’ (formerly known as the BFR) as a fully reusable vehicle designed to take humans and supplies to mars. the aerospace company is currently building two orbital prototypes and just completed a successful short jump of its starhopper prototype to test its raptor engine.

 

project info

 

company: spaceX / NASA

model: starship