SpaceX Releases Animation of Planned Falcon Heavy Launch (gizmodo.com.au) 108
intellitech writes: SpaceX CEO Elon Musk recently shared a new (and, really freaking cool) animation demonstrating how the company plans to launch the maiden flight of their Falcon Heavy system later this year, which will be the most powerful rocket since the Saturn V used for the moon landings during the Apollo-era. According to Elon Musk's Instragram post, "FH is twice the thrust of the next largest rocket currently flying and ~2/3 thrust of the Saturn V moon rocket." He also reiterates that there's a "lot that can go wrong in the November launch."
Direct link to the YouTube video.
Direct link to the YouTube video.
Not Skeptical (Score:1)
I am not as skeptical as most that this won't actually happen.
It will happen. And it changes things, yet again.
I do love progress. I promise you... this will happen.
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What will happen? (A launch later this year, a successful launch later this year, or a successful launch later this year that also returns the first stages?)
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What changes? What is the demand for this?
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The demand, most obviously, is a means for America to start putting astronauts into space again. No more relying on the Russians to do it.
And it puts in place a stepping stone to moon trips or mars trips.
Yes, most of this is regaining lost capability.
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The US only put astronauts into space to prove to the USSR and the world that we had superior air and technological capability. That box was checked long ago. There is no demand for astronauts in space. They are a relic of the 60s through the 80s and have been replaced with robots. What lost capability? We can build Saturn V rockets all day.
I don't see any big changes here. We get bigger rockets to push heavier garbage into our outer atmosphere. Electrolytes.
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A space Luddite on slashdot. Interesting!
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Actually you can not build a Sarturn V again.
There never where any 'version controlled' plans/sketches for them.
So what you now have are mere ideas on uncorrect blueprints, and if you have luck, some shipping lists for parts (which I doubt).
Reviving a 40+ year old project is close to impossible, imho.
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Don't get your point.
What do you want to scan? A more or less dismanteled Saturn V in a museum?
To use CAD/CAM you need a model. If you have none ....
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If the thing is complete it would work, but then again likely parts are missing. Most likely we can not get the electronics and compiters again. If the software is still available we could emulate it on modern hardware, though.
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The F9H is not necessary to put astronauts into space. Astronauts will go to the ISS on the regular F9 as soon as NASA decides crew dragon is safe.
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Large payloads to geostationary orbit with re-usable launch vehicles. SpaceX can just barely do geo with the Falcon 9 and it can't be landed afterwards. They'd really like to be able to geo (where there's a lot of demand) and get the cost savings of reusability.
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It will happen. And it changes things, yet again.
What will change?
Isn't this a bit like a small car company saying they'll probably, possibly, real soon now, test a car that's 2/3 as powerful as a 1960s model?
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> Isn't it a bit like a small aviation company saying they'll test a relatively cheap warplane that goes at 2/3 the speed of a 1960s model (the SR-71)?
No.
It's like a rocket company saying they'll test a rocket that's much cheaper to fly than the competition and carries a heavier payload. There will be demand for it because engineers will look at it and say to themselves "Hey, this lets me fit more stuff on my satellite to make it last longer and work better."
Making a spacecraft last a year longer dramat
Video was posted in 2015. (Score:5, Informative)
It's not new.
Re:Video was posted in 2015. (Score:5, Funny)
Two years is damned recent... when you compare it to when the Great Pyramid was built.
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Yep.
Elon just reposted this to his twitter and now everybody is thinking this is somehow news..
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Elon just reposted this to his twitter and now everybody is thinking this is somehow news..
When will non-believers like you give the prophet credit for deeming to communicate with the faithful? It doesn't what he says, or when he says it - instead you should being feeling all joyous inside just hear his missives. /s
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When will non-believers like you give the prophet credit for deeming to communicate with the faithful? It doesn't what he says, or when he says it - instead you should being feeling all joyous inside just hear his missives. /s
Oi. I can't tell if the mess you made of the English was intentional or not. Let's try that again...
When will nonbelievers like you give the prophet credit for deigning to communication with the faithful? It isn't what he says, or when he says it—instead you should be feeling all joyous inside just to hear his missives. </sarcasm>
Stop posting drunk, Peter.
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Actually, center booster will land on drone ship (Score:4, Informative)
according to Musk's twitter here [twitter.com]
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manage a three (Score:2)
Not really just three stages1s strapped together.. (Score:2)
The concept was "three of the regular ones strapped together", but actually it's required a lot more design changes than originally thought...
https://youtu.be/XqYPmshyCDU?t=28m24s
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I don't understand the issue with crossfeed - it works really well with my Rockomax Jumbo-64 Fuel Tanks. That is, when you get the FTX-2 External Fuel Duct the correct way round.
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So is this basically three of the regular ones strapped together or a different thing entirely?
Well that was the general idea, take your basic Falcon 9 and strap two more first stages on the side as boosters. Apparently it wasn't quite that easy, though I'm not sure why SpaceX has struggled so much with it. It seems to be the same principle like the Delta IV Heavy [wikipedia.org] and several other existing rockets. One factor can be that SpaceX has been able to boost the F9 launch capacity enough to "steal" some payloads originally planned for FH, it's now more niche than initially planned. On the high-end the FH wi
Re:manage a three (Score:5, Interesting)
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There will be a market for it.
The FH will let them put kit out to a further GTO, reducing the amount of fuel the satellite burns to circularize. That leaves more fuel in the satellite, reducing one of the big constraints on the satellite's lifespan. If this lets a customer keep their satellite alie for an extra year or two that's a huge cost savings.
Raptor engine (Score:3)
Where the fuck is the Raptor engine? How about an update on that? I am seriously interested in seeing a re-usable methane full flow staged combustion rocket engine.
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Why in God's name would you want that? Reusable engines are of no interest, we have had resuabe engines for 50 years. The RL-10 could be used for an arbitrary number of flights if you could get it back. They have individual engines with 50+ flight worth of run time with nearly no wear of the major parts since the 60's. The SSMEs were reusable, along with OMS engines (they are going to reuse flown engines for Orion SM at least in some cases). Methane as a fuel is net no better than anything else, less good
Where have I seen this before? (Score:2)
That animation gives me an incredible feeling of deja vu. I can't quite put my finger on it...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYSOmYyNHpU
SpaceX Releases Animation of Planned Falcon Heavy (Score:3)
Very nice animation - - - BUT
1) note the word 'planned' - even Musk is down-playing the full success of the initial launch
2) only the 2 out-board engines will land at Kennedy - the central engine burns longer and thus Kennedy is outside it's return/landing capability - - - it will land on a barge in the Atlantic
3) Item of Interest - the 2 out-board engines have been 'flight-tested', they are recycled launch engines
All-in-all, a very nice YouTube vid - but the odds of some kind of failure are pretty high. Still, I wish the best of luck for Musk and his team. They have done wonders over the last few years in turning the governmentally-controlled space-launch industry into a viable commercial business.
GO - MUSK - GO . . . It's gonna' be neat to see the 2 outboard engines landing simultaneously at Kennedy.
cheers . . .
SpaceX Releases Animation of Planned Falcon Heavy (Score:3)
Here's one for the BOTE crowd - - -
How about strapping FOUR outboard engines (or even SIX in a hexagonal array) wrapped around the central engine.
OK, so the thrust of even 3 full-burn engines over-stresses the vehicle, burn the outboards at 2-at-a-time max thrust, with all others throttled down, then jettison the exhausted engines and ramp up the next 2 to full thrust.
With a 4x set of outboards, the range is vastly expanded - geosync and moon insertion.
And with a 6-pack - burning 2 at a time, Mars and the Asteroids become real possibilities.
For near-earth orbits, the payload capacity becomes HUGE - equal / exceeding the Saturn V with the 4 outboard (plus central core) - - - and REALLY HUGE using the 6-pack plus core configuration.
Hell, with the 6-pack configuration, you could conceiveably deliver TWO fully loaded engines to low-to-medium orbit so they could be strapped onto another vehicle - - - to be used for Lunar, Mars, and Asteroid missions.
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Interesting.
I guess none of the engineers at Space X has thougt about that.
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> OK, so the thrust of even 3 full-burn engines over-stresses the vehicle, burn the outboards at 2-at-a-time max thrust, with all others throttled down, then jettison the exhausted engines and ramp up the next 2 to full thrust.
> And with a 6-pack - burning 2 at a time, Mars and the Asteroids become real possibilities.
Burning 2 at a time is extremely inefficient. Spend some time in Kerbal Space Program and you'll see why this doesn't work. You want to burn as much of your fuel as close to the ground
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Very true - but if it disassembles your rocket due to stress overload, your totally up the proverbial creek - - - and the docs I've read about the structural stress loads on the Falcon indicate that it can NOT withstand more than 2 engines at full thrust in it's current configuration. So - - - whatcha' gonna' do? - build a completely new rocket, or use what you have and boost the system with PAIRS of engines firing together?
Hell, the most efficient thrust system today is to fire off a small nuke under your
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Well, boosters create a lot of sideways forces on the main stage. It's been done as a cheap way to increase thrust for greater flexibility, but I imagine that with many boosters you're better off just building a bigger core stage so you get all the force behind it. That's why for example the ITS concept is one huge cylinder, if that's your regular launch size you don't use boosters.
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Agreed. But if you want to do it NOW, you use what you have - basically the current launch vehicle with extra strap-on engines.
Hope it goes well (Score:1)
The launch should go fine, just like in the video - so long as there's no roof snipers about.
Creditability? (Score:2)
Re:Animation? (Score:5, Insightful)
Pretty sure the Falcon 9 Heavy was supposed to have launched for real by now. Is this animation supposed to make up for the lack of the real thing?
Yes, the cartoon was supposed to be enough of a distraction, but you were too clever to fall for that... smugly sitting there changing the World in a fashion that Elon Musk can only dream about.
To be fair, I believe the launch delays began after the 06/15 CRS-7 crash. The last thing a privately held rocket company could afford is a reputation for repeated failure, so it seems prudent that they became a bit more cautious.
Re:Animation? (Score:5, Informative)
To be fair, I believe the launch delays began after the 06/15 CRS-7 crash.
The first non-committal estimate was in 2008:
By 2008, SpaceX were aiming for the first launch of Falcon 9 in 2009, and "Falcon 9 Heavy would be in a couple of years."
By 2011:
In April 2011, Elon Musk was targeting a first launch of Falcon Heavy from Vandenberg Air Force Base on the West Coast in 2013.
It kept getting pushed back, then the CRS crash but initially only to April/May 2016:
By September 2015, impacted by the failure of SpaceX CRS-7 that June, SpaceX rescheduled the maiden Falcon Heavy flight for April/May 2016, but by February 2016 had moved that back again to late 2016. The flight was now to be launched from the refurbished Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A. In August 2016, the demonstration flight was moved to early 2017, then to Summer 2017, and finally to November 2017.
It's been "a couple years out" now for almost a decade and under a year since 2015. Musk's schedules should be taken with significant amounts of salt, he wants to move much faster than what they can manage in practice.
Re:To be fair... (Score:4, Insightful)
On the other hand he has pressure not to fail.
Here's the problem with rockets: they work right on the knife edge between inferno and explosion. Catastrophic failure is normal in testing new, cutting edge designs.
During the space race a lot of rockets failed. This is how the Russians got so good at it without having anything like the funding NASA had: they failed a *lot* but kept trying because they were behind the US. Once the Moon race heated up the US was able to reduce its failure rate in its very public program by spending almost inconceivable amounts of money.
So it's the old engineering tradeoff: cost/quality/schedule. Either you spend a lot of money, put up with a lot of failure, or spend lots of time. NASA in the 60s spent money; the Soviets of that era put up with failure; and on their super-heavy launch vehicle SpaceX has spent more time.
Ultimately in business there's no such thing as being your own boss. When you own the show, your customers are the boss. So what would potential customers say if SpaceX kept to schedule but had the kind of failure rate the old Soviet space program had?
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they work right on the knife edge between inferno and explosion.
So do a great many things. You can bring down a jumbo jet if you know which wire to cut or hole you build your wasp nest in or where to forget to add oil.
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>Musk's schedules should be taken with significant amounts of salt
Quite, and yet he nevertheless maintains impressive forward momentum. As the old adage goes "If you don't fail regularly, you're not trying hard enough." And you've got to give him credit for consistent vision - the details may change, the timeline may slip, but he mostly keeps on reaching his goals eventually. That's a lot more than you can say for an awful lot of people.
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Name a heavy lift rocket that doesn't have years or decades of delays.
Angara has had, what, 2 launches 3 years ago and nothing since.
Antares has had 1 launch in the 3 years since it had a failure.
Vulcan, Ariene 6?
Will SLS ever fly?
Aside from Senate Launch System all of these delays are mostly normal for big rocket development.
Re:Animation? (Score:4, Informative)
But the forces and stresses from having the side boosters on the core effectively meant they had to design the core from scratch again. It had to be able to withstand much larger stresses. Also having 27 engines close to each other rather than 9 increases vibration and heat. So in effect falcon heavy is almost a completely different rocket from falcon 9. And according to Musk, had they known this in advance they might not have gone down this path.
What they have achieved so far is truly amazing. I'm happy to be alive right now
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There's also the fact that they've doubled the payload capacity of the single-core Falcon 9, and can now use it for many payloads originally planned for the Heavy. Combine that with the fact that reuse makes 3x as big a difference for Heavy launches, and it's perfectly clear why they prioritized getting Falcon 9 optimized and re-flying over the Falcon Heavy. Getting stuff into orbit is the goal, not launching the Falcon Heavy.
Yes, they're way behind their original estimated launch dates. They adapted their
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You're quite right on this one. However I don't really think
Is necessarily true. I mean, Musk is a businessman as well, so he understands the importance of marketing. This animation itself is from 2015 as others have pointed out, yet as Musk just re-posted it to his Twitter it's now making the rounds in the news again. SpaceX has a lot of promise, but so far they - like many of
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That's a ridiculous assertion. They do not want to keep their launch schedules secret. They want their customers to know when they can expect to launch, they want NASA and the coast guard to know when they're going to launch. It's just not easy, it's rocket science.
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Re: Animation? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well let's list the ways he has already changed the world then:
1) co-founded PayPal, which revolutionized online payments.
2) founded Tesla, which is the first all electric car company.
3) founded Solarcity, revolutionized solar with his solar tiles.
4) built the largest battery manufacturing plant in the world.
5) built a functioning hyperloop test facility.
6) founded SpaceX
7) helped SpaceX become the first commercial spaceflight company to contract with Federal govt. Both for ISS missions and for military flights.
So, bub, what have YOU done to match the LEAST of these?
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Paypal only sucks if you've never looked at what it takes to get a merchant account. Before Paypal it cost you a grand, minimum, to accept credit cards.
For Tesla, how many new Electric cars could you buy in the US when they started selling them? It was practically zero. People who wanted an electric car were stuck with having to buy a gasser and converting them.
If you don't consider Tesla's autopilot revolutionary you just aren't paying attention.
Cynical much? (Score:2)
Holy fuck you Musk cocksuckers are unbelievable. If someone isn't "changing the world" as Musk claims (but fails to do), then according to you, they cannot criticize him at all.
Heaven forbid someone not be a cynical whiner like yourself who wants nothing more than to find some tiny flaw in others so they can tear them down. Musk IS changing the world and doing so in ways that appear ethically sound as a general proposition. If you don't appreciate that fact then that is your problem. He's working hard to solve serious problems and making real headway in doing so. Go ahead and criticize him if you like but don't be surprised when we tell you that your opinion isn't persuasive.
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Holy fuck you Musk cocksuckers are unbelievable. If someone isn't "changing the world" as Musk claims (but fails to do), then according to you, they cannot criticize him at all.
Sure are a lot of you peeps on here. I guess it's neatly explained by jealousy. Sad!
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Please give me your address. ...
I can google for you in your neighbourhood for a doctor that can help you with your mental illness.
For free
Stop fixating on arbitrary estimated dates (Score:2)
Pretty sure the Falcon 9 Heavy was supposed to have launched for real by now. Is this animation supposed to make up for the lack of the real thing?
It will launch when it is ready to launch. Why are you fixated on whether SpaceX actually launches on or before whatever date Elon guesses? It's not as if anything terrible happens if it takes a little longer than expected. Relax. Elon guessed a (probably optimistic) date based on information available at the time. Turned out to take longer. The only people who should give even a theoretical shit are the customers of SpaceX which is pretty much nobody here.