peregrine would the the fastest mode of transportation to and from all major cities on the planet of mars, carrying people and cargo from city to city.
Peregrine can save propellant by putting itself on a suborbital trajectory which will have it end up landing at its destination with no need to fire engines until then, or it can burn more propellant to boost itself to orbital speeds to travel faster (reducing flight/transit time) and then neutralize that extra velocity by firing its engines in the retrograde direction so it does not achieve a sustained orbit, and instead falls down to its landing location as intended.
Peregrine would become the primary method of long-distance transportation on Mars, and, assuming currency still exists, a seat would be very inexpensive, as only the propellant to refill the spacecraft's tanks as well as the computing power to evaluate the state of the spacecraft would cost money for each launch. Electricity is free, because the Sun is free. Every physical part of this spacecraft (excluding the propellant AKA fuel/oxidizer) is re-usable. That includes the heat shield tiles (thermal protection system) used during atmospheric re-entry, the deployable landing legs, the three engines, and every other part you can think of, with the exception of emergency crush-core landing legs which only need to be replaced if they are used in an emergency hard landing and the cores get crushed in a controlled manner.
Overall, it's like an airplane. It launches and lands, and once it lands, it only needs to be refueled to almost immediately fly again. No replacing parts, or anything else like that. This is why a seat on Peregrine would be extremely cheap. Additionally, by the time Peregrine would actually carry humans, every part of every system on the spacecraft would have been tested thousands of times, and the actual spacecraft would have been launched hundreds of times in a row without a single failure. This would minimize the chances of any system failing while carrying humans, as any issues would have been fixed during the testing campaigns, making Peregrine more reliable than modern-day commercial Earth airplanes.
Peregrine will be capable of launching and landing hundreds of times every single day, every month, every year, nonstop. Peregrine will routinely need to undergo inspections to check for and repair any possible damage or weaknesses which have developed. Peregrine would allow anyone, to travel to anywhere on mars, in likely under 35 minutes. The spacecraft may look small in the digital renders displayed on this page, however, the spacecraft is very large, over 30m tall.
The vehicle features the following:
Stainless Steel used for primary rocket structure
Cryogenic Methane as rocket engine fuel
Cryogenic Oxygen as rocket engine oxidizer
Electric Motors for quick & precise flap control
Silica Ceramics for thermal protection system
Though rides on Peregrine will be relatively short (under 35 minutes), you will be able to admire the beautiful view of the cosmos through the extremely large transparent aluminum windows on the front of Peregrine. Illustrations may be shown on the transparent window's surface, showing where certain stars, galaxies, nebulae, etc, are, as well as their their names, properties, and what they are known for.
Increasing efficiency & conserving propellant
Peregrine flipping from horizontal to vericle for landing
Peregrine re-enters the atmosphere belly-first, as the heat shield tiles are located on the belly. After the intense (firey/plasma) part of atmospheric re-entry is complete, the vehicle continues to descend belly-first to utilize air resistance to effectively slow the vehicle down without using propulsion. This ultimately conserves propellant. When nearing the landing phase, the vehicle, like SpaceX's Starship, ignites its engine(s) and flips from horizontal to vertical orientation where the engines will then slow the rocket down in preparation for touchdown. For redundancy, Peregrine reorients itself for landing by using 3 engines, even though it only needs 1 engine.
PEREGRINE descending towards landing pad before flipping to vertical attitude
The Peregrine Vehicle can launch, land, and repeat, regardless of the time of day. Even if it's in the middle of the night. The vehicle is 100% autonomous, so no human intervention is needed. Like airplanes, there would not be a time where no Peregrine vehicles are flying. Because these vehicles are fully autonomous, it also means there is no possibility of unique newly-introduced human error during the flight, as all Peregrine's run the same reliable software and code throughout their flights.
Standard PDF files are getting old and will eventually be phased out in the future, so we're not using those anymore. Click below to see the online Peregrine document on Atmos to learn more about the Peregrine project. No clientside file downloads are needed.