SpaceX Launches First Falcon Heavy Mission in Three Years (reuters.com) 32
SpaceX's Falcon Heavy, the world's most-powerful active rocket, lifted off for the first time in more than three years on Monday from Florida's Cape Canaveral, with Elon Musk's company sending a group of satellites into orbit for the U.S. Space Force. From a report: The rocket system, representing three Falcon 9 boosters strapped side-by-side, lifted off at a SpaceX launch pad. The rocket's two side boosters were due to land in synchrony on adjacent concrete slabs along Florida's east coast roughly eight minutes after liftoff.
Missing from the summary (Score:5, Informative)
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Neither was it recovered on the last flight, for the same reason. I doubt that any Falcon Heavy flights will ever recover the core booster.
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Yes, it's (comparatively) easy to recover the side-mounted boosters, but the core stage is much higher and moving a lot faster at burnout, meaning it needs a lot more fuel to get it back. That fuel could have been used for delta-V, if you don't save it to recover the core.
So it's a question which the customer wants more: the added delta-V you get from not recovering the core stage? Or the lower price you pay by letting SpaceX recover the core?
Re:Missing from the summary (Score:4, Informative)
In this particular case, the payload is likely to be a pair of USSF satellites. Space Forces paid extra for direct injection into GEO, saving the satellites' onboard propellent.
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The customer in this case, USSF wants to preserve the onboard propellent of its satellites. It's willing to pay 30-50 million extra in expended launch configuration.
It's a start (Score:1)
Re: It's a start (Score:5, Informative)
This was SpaceX's 50th launch this year. So averaging 1.13 launches per week.
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Don't blame SpaceX when the payload isn't ready. For example, JPL screwed up their test regiment and that pushed Psyche mission back by a whole year.
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Re:It's a start (Score:4, Informative)
Development cost was said to be $500m, and SpaceX has collected $315m for today's launch.
I don't know how much of that goes toward development. While the FH may not be yet profitable, it wouldn't need fortnightly launches.
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Aren't they supposed to be be doing one of these every two weeks just to break even?
If you're referring to Falcon Heavy launches, several articles have noted that the delays are due to customer issues -- for example, one satellite had a software problem, etc... If you're referring to SpaceX launches in general, someone else noted this was the 50th this year at 1.13/week.
More to come (Score:4, Informative)
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been waiting on the payloads.
From what I perceive in the launch vehicle business is there are not many customers that need heavy lift launchers. For medium lift launchers there are lots more customers.
Re: More to come (Score:4, Interesting)
Which is why Musk tried to cancel the Heavy but Shotwell talked sense into him to remind him that while there were very few launches, the ones that did exist made their govt customers very happy.
In the end it didn't matter much since an expendable falcon 9 was upgraded so far that it can now nearly deliver the original falcon heavy specs.
Re:More to come (Score:5, Interesting)
Some of it has to do with the overwhelming success of the "standard" Falcon 9. Falcon Heavy was conceived to be able to handle payloads that Falcon 9 didn't have the heft for. As the years went on, Merlin engine performance improved and launch costs for the Falcon 9 lowered. As a result, the increasingly-capable and more-readily-available Falcon 9 ended up "stealing" some of the manifests that the Heavy was envisioned for.
There aren't a lot of payloads left that require the capacity of a Falcon Heavy. And those that do exist are mostly for nation-states (such as today's launch) that have tended to prefer the "more established" Ariane 5 and Delta IV Heavy. (At least until recently: Delta IV Heavy only has two flights left, Ariane 5 only has a handful.) Many of those nation-state payloads were developed over long-enough time scales that Falcon Heavy wasn't even considered as a possible launch vehicle. See, for instance, JWST, which was launched on an Ariane 5. Why? Partly it was the ESA making a material contribution to the project. Partly it was because SpaceX didn't even exist when JWST was in design, let alone the Falcon Heavy.
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This plus all of the forthcoming Falcon Heavy launch were all delayed due to the payload not being ready. The rocket is willing, but the customer isn't.
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JWST is literally designed around Ariane 5's capability.
SpaceX launch stream (Score:5, Informative)
Given heavy low-level fog, there's not a lot to see at first, but the downrange cameras have a good view.
Everyday Astronaut is also on site: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBjVDC8tMeo [youtube.com]
Engine configuration (Score:2)
Re:Engine configuration (Score:5, Informative)
I'm super curious as to why the Heavy seems to use a circular engine configuration instead of the 3x3 that is used for the current Falcon boosters. On the surface, it doesn't make sense to have two very different designs of something that is ostensibly very similar to each other.
The Falcon Boosters have not used the 3x3 configuration in a long time. It was used in the Version 1.0 of the booster and was changed to the circular engine configuration V1.1 per this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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I'm super curious as to why the Heavy seems to use a circular engine configuration instead of the 3x3 that is used for the current Falcon boosters. On the surface, it doesn't make sense to have two very different designs of something that is ostensibly very similar to each other.
The Falcon Boosters have not used the 3x3 configuration in a long time. It was used in the Version 1.0 of the booster and was changed to the circular engine configuration V1.1 per this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Today, I learned. Thanks. :D
and did they? (Score:2)
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They did. Although a few seconds apart rather than in "sysnchrony".
Look like there was a slight BECO issue (Score:2)
It is just me or there was a slight delay at BECO (Booster Engine Cut-Off) between the two boosters? At 21:32 we can see one of the boosters disconnecting almost half a second later than the other one. It looks like the center core slightly tilted on the opposite side of the delayed booster as a result but quickly corrected itself.
https://youtu.be/pY628jRd6gM?t=1289 [youtu.be]
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SpaceX has been known to re-mix the video with proper synchronization, account for dropouts or freezes, and reload it to youtube. For instance, during the inaugural Falcon Heavy livestream, they lost the descent feed from one of the side boosters, but just showed a duplicate of the other booster's. It looked for a moment [stackexchange.com] as though both boosters were aiming
While Artemis remains a hangar queen (Score:2)
Your tax dollars at work.
https://www.floridatoday.com/s... [floridatoday.com]
Re: While Artemis remains a hangar queen (Score:2)
I can't escape feeling that NASA asked Space/X to wait, because they don't want SLS upstaged too badly.
As it is, everyone seems to think Starship is the future, even though it hasn't flown yet.
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They didn't have to ask SpaceX to wait. They just needed to hire a couple people to submit random comments to the FAA.
Seriously, Musk can’t top Siamese landings (Score:5, Interesting)
Tesla is cool but not in the way that Falcons coming in for dual side by side landings are. They capture what its all about, why we are doing this at all and how we measure human progress