About LEVIATHAN Explorations

Recent Activity

Leviathan Explorations is working to get a NIAC Phase 1 grant to further research aspects of the mission such as the critical cooling system and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis. A draft of this year's 8-page proposal can be found on the home page.

Leviathan Explorations presented a poster of the Leviathan mission at the Venus Exploration Analysis Group (VEXAG) annual meeting in November 2022. Leviathan Exploration also provide an i-Poster at the 54th annual Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in March 2023.

Goals

In the next decade we can expect that SpaceX will have already sent numerous Starships to Mars if not the first crewed mission.  They will have the manufacturing capacity to produce large numbers of Starships per year all made from crew-rated components.  Since SpaceX is already focused on crewed Starship missions to Mars, the goals of the Leviathan project are to:

  • Demonstrate how a Starship-based planetary explorer can provide long-lived surface and near-surface exploration of Venus.
  • Demonstrate how SpaceX’s Starship manufacturing products can be creatively reconfigured to provide custom planetary explorers beyond the Moon and Mars.
  • Demonstrate how leveraging multiple aerospace technologies can enable a mission to properly explore Venus in a way that was considered all but impossible.

History

Back in 2016 I read my first article about GoogleX’s Project Loon balloons.  Out of curiosity, I wrote a bunch of code to apply their altitude control system for Venus and Mars mission scenarios.  

Fast forward to August 2019 when I watched SpaceX’s SN 5 being moved to the test stand in Boca Chica.  Looking at the simple cylinder of SN 5, I wondered whether it would float on Venus.  I recoded my previous work and found that not only could it, but it would be ideal for a long-lived low-altitude global explorer if it had the power to keep the electronics cool which then led to using Kilopower reactors.  Thus began a process of developing and refining the Leviathan mission for exploring the surface of Venus.  

In 2021 Leviathan Exploration was created in order to participate in NASA’s NIAC phase 1 process for supporting innovative research.

John Vistica

Leviathan (le·vi·a·than)

(1) A very large aquatic creature, especially a whale.
    “the great leviathans of the deep”
(2) A thing that is very large or powerful, especially a ship.