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Why NASA's Next Mars Lander Will Launch from California Instead of Florida

74 points by curtis 8y ago

HorizonXP 8y ago
TL;DR: They're launching from Vandenberg for cost-savings; they're using a larger-than-usual rocket, so they have power to spare, so they can reduce the load on Florida. I haven't been keeping up with Mars missions lately, so this was the first time I'd heard of the InSight mission. I was pleasantly surprised to see that they are using the Mars Phoenix Lander as the base for this mission. I played an extremely small role in that mission as a co-op student back in 2005. One of my most memorable experiences, and I'm especially pleased to see it having a continual impact all of these years later.
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  What a time to be alive that we’re shifting launch locations because we’re launching so frequently. May the cadence continue!
  - ams6110 8y ago
    What's the carbon footprint of a rocket launch? The liquid H2/O2 fuel should be neutral but what about solid or other propellant?
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - Hextinium 8y ago
      A Falcon 9 produces about 149 metric tons of carbon dioxide from launch. The US produced about 9.5 metric tons a second. In 16 seconds the US has produced the same amount of carbon as a Falcon 9 launch. I don't think that is terribly significant
      - Jabbles 8y ago
        I think you're off by an order of magnitude: https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-us-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indica... ~5 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year ~158 tons per second
    - maxerickson 8y ago
      Hydrogen is mostly produced by stripping it off of hydrocarbons; it's not really a carbon neutral fuel. It could be, but it mostly isn't.
      - thaumasiotes 8y ago
        Assuming you make your hydrogen purely by electrolyzing water, you still need a power source to do that. Unless your power source is carbon neutral, it doesn't make sense to say the hydrogen is.
    - briandear 8y ago
      Why do we care? That’s like being concerned about wood being used to build ships in the 15th century. The carbon footprint of all of the private jets that flew to the Paris Climate talks dwarfs anything put out by a rocket, yet were people interested in emissions suggesting WebEx instead?
      - dredmorbius 8y ago
        Wood consumption for shipbuilding, inclusive of charcoal for iron and brass manufacture, was actually a consideerable concern at the time.
        baud147258 8y ago
        It was a concern because of the availability of ressources, not because of ecological concerns.
        dredmorbius 8y ago
        Oddly, those two are not unrelated. Also: it was, as you note, a concern. That being my point.
      - mikeash 8y ago
        I don’t think either rockets or private jets are worth fretting about when it comes to climate change, but I’ve seen a lot of people suggest that flying to compare conferences is hypocritical and everyone should just videoconference over the internet instead.
snerbles 8y ago
It's open ocean straight south of Vandenberg AFB all the way to Antarctica. This geographic quirk makes it a safer location to put satellites into polar orbit - Earth-observing sats launched out of Cape Canaveral have to take a "dog-leg" course correction to avoid overflying populated areas to the south, which uses up fuel and reduces available payload. It's also the site for regular ICBM test launches, which are aimed southwest at the Kwajalein Atoll. Missile launches aren't quite as dramatic as those bound for orbit - a Minuteman III tends to be over the horizon in under a minute.
- jhayward 8y ago
  > Missile launches aren't quite as dramatic The video from the last test of Trident D5, launched from offshore, was unreal. Someone happened to catch it with a good lens from a fairly dark hilltop, and then spacecraft experts annotated the video to point out what was going on. You could see the bus rotating and ejecting warheads (or decoys) all the way through its inventory. Amazing. I'm told by family that it's even more amazing to see the RVs re-entering overhead if you are lucky enough to be downrange during a test.
  - snerbles 8y ago
    Maybe it's just my personal biases - the rumble of a Minuteman compared to a Delta or Atlas seemed rather abbreviated, and the launches themselves were often obscured in inclement weather. An SLBM popping out of the water would be rather surreal to behold, for sure. My favorite launch memory was of a Delta II night launch at SLC-2, from an elevated position on north base. The flame seemed to light up the horizon, and when the sound hit there was a power to that thunder that really must be witnessed firsthand to fully appreciate.
    - chrononaut 8y ago
      Related, someone submitted a binaural recording of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch to SmarterEveryDay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImoQqNyRL8Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImoQqNyRL8Y Conveys your sentiment regarding how it really sounds to be there. It unfortunately cannot convey the actual feeling of being there, and the impact of the launch on the body.
KirinDave 8y ago
As someone who worked directly on VAFB's spacerange modernization: they also have slightly better equipment for launches than Kennedy. VAFB's vertical wind profiler[1] is slightly more reliable, VAFB's disaster planning is easier too. If you're not launching something supermassive that should be as close to where it was assembled, Kennedy is not your best call. That's why a lot of small and on-the-dl loads tend to go there. Also: weather is consistently more favorable in California that far south. The less great part about moving more launches there is that the options for public viewing are way worse. [1]: Science trivia: it's awful old school to use weather balloons to measure wind shear layers. Now they have radars so good they literally point them straight up and let the wind shear bounce radars back down. It's amazing that this works. It's so good that it can see birds!. Some operators claimed to be able to discriminate breeds, although I have no idea how they'd validate that.
- lilott8 8y ago
  You can actually classify mosquitoes and other insects by wing flapping. Time series is a perfect application for things like this.
- tropo 8y ago
  Neither site is ideal, even restricting choices to the USA. For polar orbit, obviously northern Alaska is proper. This minimizes the amount of east-west movement that must be cancelled out. For more typical orbits, being near the equator is better. There are many choices, but Jarvis Island is probably the best. It has excellent weather and is nearly on the equator. Other good choices are Palmyra Atoll and Baker Island. There is something to be said for altitude and dry air. Altitude is kind of obvious, yet not. Although the height is not significant relative to orbit, getting above a few miles of thick air is nice. Dry air is helpful with cryogenics; remember that ice destroyed a space shuttle. Due to the high heat inherent in solid-liquid transition of water, ice formation puts lots of heat into the cryogenics. These considerations point toward a site near Tuscon or on Hawaii's big island. The astronomers probably don't want to share either spot, but hey, they might get space telescopes in exchange.
  - Avshalom 8y ago
furgooswft13 8y ago
Unrelated I guess but I'm kinda tired of Yet Another Mars Lander. I realize we have a lot of experience and success in the endeavor, and Mars is a particularly amenable planet for them (minimal atmosphere, relatively close etc.). But it's just boring at this point. Granted less boring than nothing at all, but there are much more interesting destinations in the solar system; Jupiter's moons and Venus to start. I'm aware of the huge technical leap from landing on a dead planet to an active one with a punishing atmosphere, much less dealing with Jupiter's gravity well, but the potential discoveries (and imagery) attained from a successful landing on these more challenging bodies would be worth 1000 more Mars landers. The Soviet's managed at least one Venus landing back in the 70's, imagine what we could do today. I do remember reading somewhere that Venus's atmosphere was so thick that a lander could soft land on the planet with just parachutes, or minimal retros, so maybe it's not all bad.
- mturmon 8y ago
  If going to Mars leaves you flat (so jaded!), there is always Europa Clipper (https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/europa-clipper/ https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/europa-clipper/) with current launch expected around 2024 (IIRC). It was only 2 years ago that Juno (https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/juno/main/index.html https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/juno/main/index.html) arrived at Jupiter.
  - furgooswft13 8y ago
    Jaded...absolutely. I'm still waiting for my hoverboard. NASA likes to brand a lot of their missions as "looking for evidence or possibility of extraterrestrial life", and I certainly understand that, despite the science being much more grounded and concrete. Still...if there is any hope of finding that in our solar system, Europa, and other moons of Jupiter, have far greater possibilities, relatively, than a well studied barren rock. IMO, leave Mars to Musk and the like and start focusing NASA's resources and extensive science probe/lander experience on more mysterious targets. Or give NASA a lot more money for (not-manned) exploration, and do both. That works too.
    - 8y ago
jccooper 8y ago
ULA has one Delta II still unsold, which will now probably never fly. I should think they would be happy to unload it. Must be a little more to the story. My guess would be some mass growth in the mission that made them bump it up to an Atlas V.
- vertexFarm 8y ago
  Museum model perhaps?

74 points by curtis 8y ago

TL;DR: They're launching from Vandenberg for cost-savings; they're using a larger-than-usual rocket, so they have power to spare, so they can reduce the load on Florida. I haven't been keeping up with Mars missions lately, so this was the first time I'd heard of the InSight mission. I was pleasantly surprised to see that they are using the Mars Phoenix Lander as the base for this mission. I played an extremely small role in that mission as a co-op student back in 2005. One of my most memorable experiences, and I'm especially pleased to see it having a continual impact all of these years later.

toomuchtodo 8y ago
What a time to be alive that we’re shifting launch locations because we’re launching so frequently. May the cadence continue!
- ams6110 8y ago
  What's the carbon footprint of a rocket launch? The liquid H2/O2 fuel should be neutral but what about solid or other propellant?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - Hextinium 8y ago
    A Falcon 9 produces about 149 metric tons of carbon dioxide from launch. The US produced about 9.5 metric tons a second. In 16 seconds the US has produced the same amount of carbon as a Falcon 9 launch. I don't think that is terribly significant
    - Jabbles 8y ago
      I think you're off by an order of magnitude: https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-us-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indica... ~5 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year ~158 tons per second
  - maxerickson 8y ago
    Hydrogen is mostly produced by stripping it off of hydrocarbons; it's not really a carbon neutral fuel. It could be, but it mostly isn't.
    - thaumasiotes 8y ago
      Assuming you make your hydrogen purely by electrolyzing water, you still need a power source to do that. Unless your power source is carbon neutral, it doesn't make sense to say the hydrogen is.
  - briandear 8y ago
    Why do we care? That’s like being concerned about wood being used to build ships in the 15th century. The carbon footprint of all of the private jets that flew to the Paris Climate talks dwarfs anything put out by a rocket, yet were people interested in emissions suggesting WebEx instead?
    - dredmorbius 8y ago
      Wood consumption for shipbuilding, inclusive of charcoal for iron and brass manufacture, was actually a consideerable concern at the time.
      - baud147258 8y ago
        It was a concern because of the availability of ressources, not because of ecological concerns.
        dredmorbius 8y ago
        Oddly, those two are not unrelated. Also: it was, as you note, a concern. That being my point.
    - mikeash 8y ago
      I don’t think either rockets or private jets are worth fretting about when it comes to climate change, but I’ve seen a lot of people suggest that flying to compare conferences is hypocritical and everyone should just videoconference over the internet instead.

snerbles 8y ago

It's open ocean straight south of Vandenberg AFB all the way to Antarctica. This geographic quirk makes it a safer location to put satellites into polar orbit - Earth-observing sats launched out of Cape Canaveral have to take a "dog-leg" course correction to avoid overflying populated areas to the south, which uses up fuel and reduces available payload. It's also the site for regular ICBM test launches, which are aimed southwest at the Kwajalein Atoll. Missile launches aren't quite as dramatic as those bound for orbit - a Minuteman III tends to be over the horizon in under a minute.

jhayward 8y ago
> Missile launches aren't quite as dramatic The video from the last test of Trident D5, launched from offshore, was unreal. Someone happened to catch it with a good lens from a fairly dark hilltop, and then spacecraft experts annotated the video to point out what was going on. You could see the bus rotating and ejecting warheads (or decoys) all the way through its inventory. Amazing. I'm told by family that it's even more amazing to see the RVs re-entering overhead if you are lucky enough to be downrange during a test.
- snerbles 8y ago
  Maybe it's just my personal biases - the rumble of a Minuteman compared to a Delta or Atlas seemed rather abbreviated, and the launches themselves were often obscured in inclement weather. An SLBM popping out of the water would be rather surreal to behold, for sure. My favorite launch memory was of a Delta II night launch at SLC-2, from an elevated position on north base. The flame seemed to light up the horizon, and when the sound hit there was a power to that thunder that really must be witnessed firsthand to fully appreciate.
  - chrononaut 8y ago
    Related, someone submitted a binaural recording of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch to SmarterEveryDay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImoQqNyRL8Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImoQqNyRL8Y Conveys your sentiment regarding how it really sounds to be there. It unfortunately cannot convey the actual feeling of being there, and the impact of the launch on the body.

KirinDave 8y ago

As someone who worked directly on VAFB's spacerange modernization: they also have slightly better equipment for launches than Kennedy. VAFB's vertical wind profiler[1] is slightly more reliable, VAFB's disaster planning is easier too. If you're not launching something supermassive that should be as close to where it was assembled, Kennedy is not your best call. That's why a lot of small and on-the-dl loads tend to go there. Also: weather is consistently more favorable in California that far south. The less great part about moving more launches there is that the options for public viewing are way worse. [1]: Science trivia: it's awful old school to use weather balloons to measure wind shear layers. Now they have radars so good they literally point them straight up and let the wind shear bounce radars back down. It's amazing that this works. It's so good that it can see birds!. Some operators claimed to be able to discriminate breeds, although I have no idea how they'd validate that.

lilott8 8y ago
You can actually classify mosquitoes and other insects by wing flapping. Time series is a perfect application for things like this.
tropo 8y ago
Neither site is ideal, even restricting choices to the USA. For polar orbit, obviously northern Alaska is proper. This minimizes the amount of east-west movement that must be cancelled out. For more typical orbits, being near the equator is better. There are many choices, but Jarvis Island is probably the best. It has excellent weather and is nearly on the equator. Other good choices are Palmyra Atoll and Baker Island. There is something to be said for altitude and dry air. Altitude is kind of obvious, yet not. Although the height is not significant relative to orbit, getting above a few miles of thick air is nice. Dry air is helpful with cryogenics; remember that ice destroyed a space shuttle. Due to the high heat inherent in solid-liquid transition of water, ice formation puts lots of heat into the cryogenics. These considerations point toward a site near Tuscon or on Hawaii's big island. The astronomers probably don't want to share either spot, but hey, they might get space telescopes in exchange.
- Avshalom 8y ago

furgooswft13 8y ago

Unrelated I guess but I'm kinda tired of Yet Another Mars Lander. I realize we have a lot of experience and success in the endeavor, and Mars is a particularly amenable planet for them (minimal atmosphere, relatively close etc.). But it's just boring at this point. Granted less boring than nothing at all, but there are much more interesting destinations in the solar system; Jupiter's moons and Venus to start. I'm aware of the huge technical leap from landing on a dead planet to an active one with a punishing atmosphere, much less dealing with Jupiter's gravity well, but the potential discoveries (and imagery) attained from a successful landing on these more challenging bodies would be worth 1000 more Mars landers. The Soviet's managed at least one Venus landing back in the 70's, imagine what we could do today. I do remember reading somewhere that Venus's atmosphere was so thick that a lander could soft land on the planet with just parachutes, or minimal retros, so maybe it's not all bad.

mturmon 8y ago
If going to Mars leaves you flat (so jaded!), there is always Europa Clipper (https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/europa-clipper/ https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/europa-clipper/) with current launch expected around 2024 (IIRC). It was only 2 years ago that Juno (https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/juno/main/index.html https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/juno/main/index.html) arrived at Jupiter.
- furgooswft13 8y ago
  Jaded...absolutely. I'm still waiting for my hoverboard. NASA likes to brand a lot of their missions as "looking for evidence or possibility of extraterrestrial life", and I certainly understand that, despite the science being much more grounded and concrete. Still...if there is any hope of finding that in our solar system, Europa, and other moons of Jupiter, have far greater possibilities, relatively, than a well studied barren rock. IMO, leave Mars to Musk and the like and start focusing NASA's resources and extensive science probe/lander experience on more mysterious targets. Or give NASA a lot more money for (not-manned) exploration, and do both. That works too.
  - 8y ago

jccooper 8y ago

ULA has one Delta II still unsold, which will now probably never fly. I should think they would be happy to unload it. Must be a little more to the story. My guess would be some mass growth in the mission that made them bump it up to an Atlas V.

vertexFarm 8y ago
Museum model perhaps?