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More from *Drell-7

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June 21, 2011
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:icondrell-7:
As the sun rises over the rugged lowlands of Mars, fog forms in the valleys and craters. Phobos hurtles through the dawn sky, accompanyed this day by a manned craft, slowing like a meteor in the high, thin Martian air.
This is an older piece, but I still like it a lot, particularly the plasma stream. The model is a slightly modified version of my Mars-to-orbit Ferry.
Thanks to [link] for the Phobos model, and NASA for the MOLA terrain data I used to model the Mars surface.

Modeled and rendered in Lightwave8.5, texturing and post work in PhotoshopCS.

Thanks for taking a look.
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:iconeagle1division:
*Eagle1Division Nov 29, 2011  Hobbyist General Artist
I've recently got a renewed interest in how this would work. Like the shuttle, wouldn't it need lift to give it plenty of time to slow down before hitting the ground (by reducing vertical speed)? I guess a lifting body might do?

I've got a concept for re-usable martian shuttling, but how would that work? Can parachutes be kept attached, even with rockets for terminal braking? Or would it need a powered descent after atmospheric braking down to a few thousand or hundred ft/s?

Sorry about all the questions. :P
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:icondrell-7:
*Drell-7 Dec 2, 2011  Professional General Artist
Well, its all about entry angle. The shallower the angle at which you hit the atmosphere, the more "thickness" you have. Also, at high speeds and shallow angles, this shape serves as a pretty good lifting body, allowing some fine tuning of the touch-down point. Wings are pretty much useless for slow-speed maneuvering on Mars, unless they are REALLY long, which would tend to cause problems at orbital entry speeds.

I'm assuming parachutes to stabilize and slow the craft, with final rocket braking. New chutes would be something that would have to be supplied by Earth, until the spidersilk factories on Phobos were up and running...:D
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:iconeagle1division:
*Eagle1Division Dec 2, 2011  Hobbyist General Artist
Hah. Wow. Most not take a very large lift coefficient to do it, then. Either that or I really underestimate how much lift can be had in the upper atmosphere at ~3.5 km/s without melting the heatshield...

Speaking of which, I've always wondered why the Shuttle doesn't come in at a shallower angle so it's not taken so near limits, where things like the Columbia tragedy can happen. I mean, theoretically, an entry could be done without any plasma forming at all, if done shallow enough, right? Or would that entry angle be too unpredictable or something?...

Spider Silk. lol. Nice. I think this might be a perfect example of where weight savings add to the cost instead of taking away :XD:

Well, maybe for a VASIMR-based mission. But then again, every gram is a lot of cost if it's all combustion rockets :O
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:iconkilo-charlie:
~kilo-charlie Aug 7, 2011
Outstanding scene and modeling.
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:icondrell-7:
*Drell-7 Jun 25, 2011  Professional General Artist
Huh. Looks like the European Space Agency is actually going to test this entry-body shape for REALS!!
[link]

:D
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:iconmaphisto86:
*Maphisto86 Jun 25, 2011
Art imitating reality indeed! :D :thumbsup:
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:iconisthmusline:
Mood: Joy ~IsthmusLine Jun 24, 2011
Looks great! I haven't seen anything like it before
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:iconbartlebooth:
=Bartlebooth Jun 21, 2011  Hobbyist General Artist
A very peculiar starship shape and realistic effects here. A remarkable picture!
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:icondrell-7:
*Drell-7 Jun 21, 2011  Professional General Artist
The shape is called a biconic entry vehicle. It provides a great deal of fine control, while distributing the frictional heating of atmospheric entry over a large area of hull (minimizing the intensity of temperature that any one area needs to take) It is a variation on the lifting body design.
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:iconbartlebooth:
=Bartlebooth Jun 21, 2011  Hobbyist General Artist
Must be huge, then..
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