Elon Musk’s SpaceX is zeroing in on nine possible locations on Mars to land its Starship
SpaceX has been keen on landing its Starship in the Arcadia region of Mars, which has large open plains.
We know two things about Mars. One, it has the potential to be the second home for human civilisation, and second, the never-ending craze to colonise Mars by Elon Musk, Co-founder and CEO of Tesla, and the lead architect of SpaceX.
Having said that, Musk’s plan to colonise Mars has now got an interesting update.
Recently, a set of images were released by HiRise, a telescope-camera operated by University of Arizona, which is mounted on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s (MRO) spacecraft.
Representational Image of SpaceX's vehicle on Mars (Image: SpaceX)
The database of the camera contains a small image labelled “Candidate landing sites for SpaceX Starship”. Data shows SpaceX is studying nine Mars landing sites for its spacecraft.
Speaking to Cnet, Alfred McEwen, Principal Investigator, HiRise, said,
“Under direction from NASA’s JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory), the HiRise team has been imaging candidate landing sites for SpaceX. The effort, which began in 2017 for the Red Dragon lander, is continuing for their Starship vehicle.”
SpaceX has been keen on the Arcadia region of Mars as it has large open plains, which makes it easier for Startship rockets to land on flat surfaces.
Elon Musk
Speaking further, Alfred said,
“These sites are concentrated at low elevations in the northern middle latitudes, in places where there is evidence for shallow ground ice.”
Following the same, Elon Musk-led SpaceX has been carrying out test flights for its Starship prototypes to send humans to Mars.
Recently, YourStory also reported on a successful flight test conducted by SpaceX in Texas.
The Starhopper rocket successfully flew in its second attempt to a height of 152 metres of the ground and travelled approximately 650 ft (198m) to the right, lasting 57 seconds, after which it came back for a soft landing at a nearby launching pad.
However, according to Popular Mechanics, the upcoming Starship will be capable of carrying up to 100 people to the Moon, and even Mars.
(Edited by Megha Reddy)
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