Pallas, the origin of the Free Navy, in "The Expanse" TV series

Pallas, located in the Main Asteroid Belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, is the third-largest asteroid in the Solar System (~512km in diameter). It has 22% the mass of Ceres, the largest asteroid in the Solar System, and gravity of 0.021g (2,1% of the gravity force on Earth). With an orbital inclination of 34.8°, Pallas's orbit is unusually highly inclined to the plane of the Asteroid Belt, making Pallas harder to reach by spacecraft.

In the universe of The Expanse TV series (a political sci-fi drama set in mid-24th century when humans have colonized the entire Solar system) Pallas hosts one of the oldest stations, Pallas Station, in the outer planets, refinement stations for the mining operations in the Asteroid Belt and the largest fuel refinery in the Belt.

In The Expanse TV series Pallas has a population of 9 to 13 thousand, but is also known for its extremist Belter splinter groups among its colony. One of those splinter groups eventually form the core of the Free Navy. Pallas is the birthplace of Marco Inaros, Naomi Nagata and their son Filip.

In late season 5 of the show the acting Secretary-General of the United Nations David Paster orders an uncoordinated missile strike against the Pallas Station, destroying one of its habitation rings and killing thousands of Belters.

Here you can view some of the few shots of Pallas Station exteriors in the show:

Naomi Nagata's ship at Pallas Station docks:

Destruction of one of the habitation rings of the Pallas Station:

More content from The Expanse TV series:

• Destruction of Deimos
• Ganymede, the breadbasket of the Belt
• Ceres, the capital of the Belt
• Lunar colony in season 5
• Martian colonies in season 5
• Martian colonies in season 4
• Mars in season 2

SpaceX Starship orbital flight test 4 - infographic by Tony Bela

Australian space illustrator Tony Bela has created an infographic of the upcoming 4th integrated flight test of SpaceX's Starship rocket (booster B11, ship S29) on Thursday, June 6 (the 120-minute test window opens at 7:00 a.m. CT) from Starbase, Boca Chica, Texas.

SpaceX: "The fourth flight test turns our focus from achieving orbit to demonstrating the ability to return and reuse Starship and Super Heavy. The primary objectives will be executing a landing burn and soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico with the Super Heavy booster, and achieving a controlled entry of Starship. To accomplish this, several software and hardware upgrades have been made to increase overall reliability and address lessons learned from Flight 3. The SpaceX team will also implement operational changes, including the jettison of the Super Heavy’s hot-stage following boostback to reduce booster mass for the final phase of flight.

Flight 4 will fly a similar trajectory as the previous flight test, with Starship targeted to splashdown in the Indian Ocean. This flight path does not require a deorbit burn for reentry, maximizing public safety while still providing the opportunity to meet our primary objective of a controlled Starship reentry."

SpaceX livestream of the launch:

Martian city in "Chaser"

Chaser is an old first-person shooter released on 2003. Today there is no shortage of video games set on Mars, but back then Chaser was one of the few, even if only less than half of the game actually takes place on Mars. It follows a story somewhat similar to that of Arnold Schwarzenegger's famous movie Total Recall (1990) and I reviewed the game here 10 years ago.

Recently I made a second playthrough of the game. Part of Chaser's story takes place in a city on Mars under a large dome and here are some screenshots of the city:

Destruction of Deimos in "The Expanse" TV series

Deimos is the smaller and outer of the two natural satellites of Mars, the other being Phobos. Deimos, likely an asteroid captured by Mars' gravity, is highly non-spherical with a mean diameter of 12.5 km (about 57% the size of Phobos) and it orbits 23,460 km from Mars (Deimos' orbit is slowly getting larger and it is expected to eventually escape Mars' gravity). Escape velocity from the surface of Deimos is only 5.6 m/s so a human can basically jump off of it.

In the universe of The Expanse TV series (a political sci-fi drama set in mid-24th century when humans have colonized the entire Solar system) Deimos hosts military facilities and a deep radar station for Martian Congressional Republic - one of the three competing powers in The Expanse, along with the United Nations (based on Earth) and the Belt.

Concept art of Deimos in The Expanse by Canadian designer Lee Fitzgerald:

In early season 2 of The Expanse Deimos is destroyed with nuclear missiles in a "moon for a moon" retaliatory strike by the United Nations (Earth) after the Martian assault cruiser destroyed Earth's research base on Saturn's moon Phoebe along with the consequent destruction of the moon itself. The destruction of Deimos killed 17 Martians and the moon disintegrated forming the "Deimos Ring" around Mars.

Concept art of Martian Deep Radar Station on Deimos before the missile strike by Lee Fitzgerald:

News coverage of the destruction of Deimos:

NASA has revealed new designs of lunar cargo landers from SpaceX & Blue Origin

As we know NASA has contracted SpaceX and Blue Origin to provide landing systems to take astronauts to the Moon’s surface from lunar orbit, beginning with SpaceX's Lunar Starship for Artemis III mission.

On April 19, 2024, NASA announced it has asked SpaceX and Blue Origin to develop cargo versions of their human lunar landers as an option under their existing contracts. These cargo variants are expected to land approximately 12 to 15 metric tons (26,000 to 33,000 pounds) of payload on the lunar surface and be in service no earlier than the Artemis VII mission. In the announcement NASA shared the latest official renders of lunar cargo landers from SpaceX and Blue Origin:

SpaceX's Lunar cargo Starship

Blue Origin's Lunar cargo Lander

SpaceX Starship update 2024

On April 4th at Starbase, Texas SpaceX CEO and lead designer Elon Musk provided an unannounced update of SpaceX's Starship architecture. Here are slides and animations from his presentation.

Full presentation:

Slides from the presentation

Starship v1, v2 and v3 specifications:

Thrust comparison of Raptor v1, v2 and v3:

First Mechazilla launch tower pairs at Starbase, Texas and Cape Canaveral, Florida:

SpaceX Starbase at Texas - Humanity's Gateway to Mars

A symbolic photo of Starship' Integrated Flight Test 3 on March 14, 2024 from SpaceX's Starbase located at Boca Chica, Texas.

SpaceX Starship orbital flight test 3 - infographic by Tony Bela

Australian space illustrator Tony Bela has created an infographic of the upcoming 3rd integrated flight test of SpaceX's Starship rocket (booster B10, ship S28) on Thursday, March 14 (the 110-minute test window opens at 7:00 a.m. CT) from Starbase, Boca Chica, Texas.

SpaceX: "The third flight test aims to build on what we’ve learned from previous flights while attempting a number of ambitious objectives, including the successful ascent burn of both stages, opening and closing Starship’s payload door, a propellant transfer demonstration during the upper stage’s coast phase, the first ever re-light of a Raptor engine while in space, and a controlled reentry of Starship. It will also fly a new trajectory, with Starship targeted to splashdown in the Indian Ocean."

SpaceX livestream of the launch:

Harmonia City - Part 5 of Martian sketches by Andrey Maximov

Environment concept artist Andrey Maximov from Armenia has created an impressive set of artworks called Martian sketches depicting a "routine" journey to Mars in 2089. So far he has published 30 pages of those sketches. As the artist describes them: "this series is kind of like the road sketches of a member of an expedition to Mars. It's a routine flight in the not-too-distant future. The planet is more or less inhabited. We have an orbital station around Mars. There are already several settlements on the surface, mining is going on."

• 1st part (10 sketches) of Andrey's Martian sketches depicted the expedition leaving Earth;
• 2nd part (5 sketches) depicted expedition's arrival to "International Mars Orbital Station";
• 3rd part (6 sketches) depicted spaceport "Anteros" on Mars.
• 4th part (4 sketches) depicted expedition's road to the "Harmonia City".

Here is 5th part (5 sketches) depicting the multi-leveled "Harmonia City" on Mars:

SpaceX Starship next to a solar farm on Mars

Two renders of SpaceX's Starship standing next to a solar farm on Mars by German 3D artist and YouTuber 3D_Daniel.