SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket sets up at Cape Canaveral ahead of launch | Hacker News Reader

SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket sets up at Cape Canaveral ahead of launch

techcrunch.com

275 pointsmkarthik234 comments

I am so much excited about this upcoming launch. If they get the F9Heavy to work like the F9, this opens up entirely new possibilities in space. With the F9Heavy, not only very heavy loads can be put into orbit, but both the Moon and the Mars can be reached at a much lower cost than any previous system.

Beyond being just a cool new rocket, what faszinates me most about the F9Heavy, is the clever system approach by SpaceX. They are not only reusing the F9 design, but two of the three first stage cores alreay had launched cargo into the orbit. This is just mindblowing.

my joy is the same as their current systems, that a private company can innovate in such an expensive and difficult industry.

between this and deep sea exploration it just amazes me that technology has opened this to private industry and people. that is the science "fiction" I have been waiting to see come about

It was my understanding that the F9H components cannot be recycled F9 units, despite me Musk's best efforts at engineering a solution.

Both the side boosters on the F9H inaugural flight will be reused boosters. The center boosters are only able to fly on F9H but are planned to be reusable.

Here are both the landing videos of the side cores that will be flying on the F9H https://youtu.be/4jEz03Z8azc https://youtu.be/DKqY8sy3nkM?t=55s

are they landing all 3 first stages - that would be so cool

That's the plan. The center core at sea on the ASDS, both side boosters back at the Cape.

It would be EPIC to see it

Go see it!

The two side boosters on the FH demo flight are recycled from previous F9 missions. The central core is new and will be recovered. I do not think it’s possible to use the central FH core on an F9 mission, but it will be re-used for further FH missions.

Any idea why that is? I could imagine that its structure being incapable of handling the additional mass.

Me too! I really hope NASA just abandons their plans for a heavy launch system to get to the moon and mars. Use a mix of SpaceX F9 Heavy, Delta IV Heavy, and Ariane 5.

And Blue Origin's New Glenn.

And Ariane 6.

And Falcon 9 (which can lift as much as the Ariane rockets)

And BFR.

Yea, the US really should be spending $20B in taxpayer dollars building a new heavy lift rocket system that has zero re-usablity.

To be fair, those companies are just copying Russian/NASA designs, so maybe the money is semi-useful.

Serious question, are there any new components in the SLS worth copying?

There aren't many new components. The tech in the Orion capsule is new, but the capsule design is very similar to previous capsules (aerodynamics don't change). All the rest is basically re-used tech from the shuttle.

I may be wrong in this case about the upper stage. I don't know what they plan on using for those engines. If they're new engines (which I haven't heard of development regarding them), then that could be interesting, but they're likely reused OM engines from the shuttle or something like that.

In SLS, if we are not talking about Orion, not really.

So, the engines is the same as the SpaceX Shuttle (RS-25). This is a great engine but nobody would build it today. It uses a fuel-rich design and almost universally people are now building Oxidizer-rich staged cycles. BlueOrigin BE-4 being a good example.

Second these RS-25 use hydrogen but currently everybody is building methane based engines. Building a new hydrogen engine would maybe make sense for upper stages in some situation but then you would probably copy the RL-10 or the new BE-3U that BlueOrigin is working on.

So I don't think that any modern project will try the same route as the RS-25 did.

The SLS is using new solid boosters that are not worth copying unless you want to build gigantic nukes. Solid fuel just does not make sense in space flight currently (outside a few specialised applications).

On the upper stage they will use very good but old and expensive engines (both in Block 1 and Block 1b).

Structurally the SLS is also behind the times. I don't think anybody would design something like it, they were just forced to use old stuff they had from the Space Shuttle.

So I don't think anybody would still copy SLS. Yes, SpaceX uses much of the old US and Russian ideas but in there current design, Falcon 9 they have already improved on pretty much everything. Their next Rocket, BFR, will go way beyond anything done in any other rocket. From the engines, to the structure, to the control, to cold gas thruster, fuel integration and so on.

Yes; much of the SLS requirements were forced by a certain bloc of congress who, since the 1970's have been directing pork-barrel $ at a few contractors' business. (in particular, Lockheed's Michaud facility in Louisiana, and Thiokol/ATK..now OrbitalATK, in the case of the solid rocket fuel). A lot of the original STS requirements were driven by this congressional delegation.

Good riddance to this form of "engineering".

That said: I'm not super bullish on the outcome of Blue Origin's efforts. The have not impressed me. SpaceX has; very much. And I do believe that Lockheed, Boeing, and even OrbitalATK will be very important players in the future. They're all continuing to do great work, but the government's got to start spending their money much smarter than they had been. (And perhaps the worst example was the cancellation of the X-33 Program).

And the US/Russia just copied the V2.

And Von Braun just copied Goddard and Oberth.

And so far SpaceX is the only one to make re-usable commercial rockets.

Which everybody before them said was impossible.

>To be fair, those companies are just copying Russian/NASA designs, so maybe the money is semi-useful.

So you are saying the US should throw away $20 billion on the SLS because NASA originally developed a lot of the ideas that the SpaceX Falcon Heavy uses.

Do you happen to work for one of the SLS contractors?

I think its pretty false to say that they are just copying Russian/NASA engines. While of course much of the basic research was done long before they started and they profit from it.

Both SpaceX and BlueOrigin have gone way beyond what either Russia or NASA ever did or are doing at the moment.

The SLS is a legacy rocket with legacy technology.

It will go down as the biggest waste of money in space history. I should be cancelled as soon as possible.

Regards to comments mentioning that this is three F9s strapped together: While this is somewhat true, the development of this program was apparently lot more difficult than just tying them together. I remember Musk mentioning that they had underestimated the problem, the two additional boosters changed the dynamics significantly, and the core booster had to be redesigned to accommodate the new load parameters.

Needless to say, I'm extremely excited to even see a static fire of this monster. Re-using boosters for your early development is pretty nice and efficient too I imagine.

> Re-using boosters for your early development is pretty nice and efficient too I imagine.

It sounds good on paper but it's not easy in practice, see: the Russian N-1 moon rocket, which basically just took the R7 rocket and scaled it up with more engines. Turns out too many engines means too many points of failure, and the rocket never worked.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N1_(rocket)

Much like in computing, you can't substitute one oxen with a thousand chickens and expect the same outcome when you plow your field.

The N-1 failed for lots of reasons besides having so many engines. It's designer died before it was completed. It's primitive control systems were inadequate. It's funding was inadequate.

SpaceX has already shown that with modern control systems, you can bundle a bunch of chickens together to plow a field. Having 9 engines has already helped them complete missions where one failed. The Falcon Heavy problem isn't scaling from 9 to 27 per se, it's building a new structure to handle all the new stresses that will occur, from the launch sequence to aerodynamic.

The engines were also ablative and couldn't be tested together.

And even the seemingly small things; like how to detach the side boosters, how to handle the vastly different aerodynamics when you don't have an interstage (nosecone instead), etc.

It uses the same engines and very similar hardware, but there are so many new/not-flight-proven things on this rocket that it will be exciting, one way or another!

Although, Boeing has proven the concept with Delta IV heavy, (and, I think there are a few other precursors, as well, including STS). So this isn't completely new territory.

I believe GP means literally re-using boosters that flew in space, not just the design.

All supercomputing is now done with armies of chickens. It was a great saying when Cray said it, but the future was not what he imagined.

Armies of chickens today would be something like ARM server chips, which have been touted for a long time but have perpetually stalled out precisely because replacing one powerful core with a dozen weak cores doesn't work. Even for commodity tasks, but especially when you throw the need for interconnect scalability into the mix.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that a large system is implicitly using weaker processors. They're as powerful as we can make them, some tasks just need a lot of them.

If you can control the chickens, anything is possible.

Wow, that's my new motto!

Also, my understanding is that initially there was supposed to be a corss-feed system that would increase the total delta-V considerably, but it isn't ready yet

That was initially the plan. It proved too complex and has since been dropped from the design. It won't be coming back.

Which is too bad, because it would be really awesome if they had managed to make it work.

Do you have a source?

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/726561442636263425

That doesn't imply that cross-feed isn't coming back, only that it isn't needed for the capabilities Musk posted.

While that single statement might not imply that it's gone for good, everything Elon and SpaceX have publicly stated leads one to the conclusion that it isn't ever going to happen.

Heck, Falcon Heavy has turned out to be a much larger engineering problem than originally thought even without asparagus staging (cross-feed) due to issues with reinforcing the center core to handle the loads from the side cores.

Based on Musk's latest presentation regarding BFR, it seems that Falcon Heavy will be a somewhat short-lived launch platform.

Then again, with SpaceX, plans change early and often...

SpaceX's genius has never been getting the absolute maximum possible thrust out of engines. It's been designing them so they can be mass produced inexpensively, and re-used. They've proven that is the far more important skill.

So making the Falcon Heavy work as simply and well as possible is the important part. Getting another 10% by making crossfeed work, at the cost of making it more complex, harder to build and re-use, simply wouldn't be worth it.

Reproducible results is a skill set unto itself.

I think it would be worth it if they were not already looking working on BFR.

Falcon Heavy can fly for a couple of years now and it can handle current demands.

They will open up to next level capability with a next level vehicle.

I bet if Elon could turn back the clock he'd skip F9H and going straight to BFR. F9's Payload to LEO numbers have been going up; first design: 10,450 kg, current: 22,800 kg. On paper when Heavy was designed it was 25,000 kg to LEO.

I'm not sure. There are some things that the FH can do, military and space tourism and maybe a couple other things. Might be worth doing before the BFR, we will have to see how often i launches.

We just don't have the numbers, I would love to see the internal accounting of these projects.

I'd argue that if they put the engineering effort into BFR that much earlier, we might have a vehicle by now that can meet those demands as well as be a much better mars vehicle.

Are you quoting something that SpaceX said?

> It proved too complex and has since been dropped from the design. It won't be coming back.

SpaceX plans to do in-orbit refueling for its BFR, though. I may be oversimplifying, but it seems to me this is a fairly similar feat than cross-feeding. Couldn't the experience gained in this help for that?

Not really. In orbit, you can transfer your fuel slowly, gently, and the receiving tank doesn't have to be under pressure. During launch, you need the receiving tanks to be at 50-100 PSI for the rocket to work, which probably means the fuel being pumped at a pressure that is much higher.

I wonder if they throttle back the central booster to ensure its fuel lasts longer than the two outside boosters. This is likely far easier than the cross-feed system though it would lower the total thrust.

Bingo! http://www.spacex.com/falcon-heavy

"Shortly after liftoff the center core engines are throttled down. After the side cores separate, the center core engines throttle back up to full thrust."

Does anyone know how they keep it NOT moving when doing a static fire of something like this?

There are clamps in the launch pad that hold the rocket down.

This is easier then one would think because the rocket is fuelled and the engines already have a hard time living the rocket at all.

They use the same launch pad during launch and the clamps only release when the computer has made sure all engines have correctly stared and are running correctly.

Check out the video from RocketLab when they had a launch abort to see a example of this.

Worth mentioning: this isn't even the biggest rocket that's ever flown! The Saturn V that took man to the moon was a monster.

https://i.redd.it/whrexuerscpz.png

Of the rockets in that photo however, everything other than the Falcon 9 either isn't in production yet, or isn't anymore.

I can highly recommend a visit to the Saturn V center[1] at Kennedy Space Center, where you can begin to truly appreciate the immense scale of the Saturn V rocket. I’ve been several times at this point and it still blows my mind just how huge that thing is. If you think of going, and have a flexible schedule, I can definitely recommend planning a trip to see a rocket launch on site. It’s a fantastic experience, but be prepared to come back several days in a row in that case, if they scrub the launch.

[1]: https://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/explore-attractions/race-...

I went down the KSC every year during undergrad for the NASA Robotic Mining Competition. In 2012 we had the banquet under the Saturn V rocket. We were also very lucky to see a launch 3 out of the 4 years.

It is really cool to see such a large rocket on its side, and to walk through the control room they used.

Oh man I’d definitely pay cash monies to attend a banquet under that rocket, even if it’s space food from silvery packets. :o)

No joke, the chunks of butter for the bread were space shuttles. Now I need to dig into my photos to see if I can find them...

Oh please please please share if you do find them! :o)

I will never forget the feeling of awe when I entered that hanger and saw the butt end of the Saturn V. It is really is something that needs to be seen to be appreciated.

And then, after walking quite a distance down the length of the rocket, realising they’ve left out the middle stage because it doesn’t fit in the vast building it is in. I laughed in disbelief.

It really can’t be explained, can it? Anyone remotely interested in space exploration will have their jaw on the floor, dragging it all along the way. I have lots of pictures from there of course, but none that are able to convey the scale or sheer awesomeness of it all.

Also very cool to sit on the bleachers outside when there’s a launch. I’ve only witnessed one launch and it was from the LC39 viewing gantry, but that was the second attempt. The first night I couldn’t get tickets for the gantry but I could for the Saturn V center. Even though they scrubbed the launch that night it was great – the air so thick with anticipation I swear you could cut it with a knife. Everyone’s attention fixed on the rocket out over the creek, mission control over the loudspeakers... Can’t wait to go back!

The 1st stage of the Saturn V alone is enough to debunk the moon hoaxers. Hundreds of thousands of people saw a whole bunch of those things launch, and they were tracked by astronomers. Just what is faking the last part of the mission supposed to "save?"

Johnson Space Center in Houston has a Saturn V similarly displayed.

There are one and a quarter F-1 engines from a Saturn V at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in DC, with a bunch of mirrors to fake the rest of the engines: https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/rocket-engine-.... Seeing that was really impressive, the entire thing must be even better :)

Do they have a Saturn V at Marshall Space Flight Center? I remember visiting there with my Cub Scout den in the 80's and just standing next to the cones of one of the rockets, staring in awe at just.how.big it was.

Marshall doesn't currently allow visitors.

However, there's one in Huntsville, at the US Space and Rocket Center (also home to space camp, for those of us who grew up with that). On it's side, on the ground, in pieces/stages. When I was last there it was out in the open. Apparently it's now enclosed in it's own building after restoration.

There's a replica standing up in their rocket garden / rocket park; it is just a mock-up, not the real thing, wiki says it was done in 1999.

There's also a real one in Houston (Johnson Space Center), and of course the one at KSC.

Yep, the US Space and Rocket Center is a museum right outside the base. The Davidson Center for Space Exploration (seen here https://www.rocketcenter.com/admission) has a Saturn V rocket broken down into stages. I had an hour to run through there while on a work trip, wish I could have spent more time.

Based on my recent experience, (with CRS-13) it's best to avoid committing to any plans until the morning of the launch, if possible.

The FH looks svelte in comparison.

What's that beast on the right side?

I believe that far right is the old SpaceX BFR design, and 2nd from right is the new BFR design.

I got curious how it compares to Saturn V.

Low Earth Orbit Payload: Falcon Heavy: 140,000lb, Saturn V: 260,000lb

Launch cost: Falcon Heavy: ~$140M, Saturn V: $185M ($1B+ in 2016 dollars)

It blows my mind how crazy Saturn V was and it was 50 years ago.

With sufficient funds you can often buy your way into the future. Saturn was awesome but nowhere near economically sustainable.

False. Losing the Saturn and trying the Shuttle instead was a catastrophic failure. Per flight the Shuttle was almost as expensive with way less capability.

Giving up the capabilities of the Saturn V hurt and cost every other project there after.

Look at the Space Station. It was way way more expensive because it had to be assembled in lots of flights.

The same goes for some of the deep space probs and space telescopes, they had to be designed often limited by small rockets.

Giving up the Saturn V was the biggest mistake the US Space program ever made. We are still working under that mistake and now have 3 groups trying to finally achieve something like it again, SLS, BFR, New Armstrong.

I don't think you are correct.

Space Shuttle came about because Saturn was not economically sustainable. NASA was getting those massive funds from the Gov for the Moon mission, and after the goal was achieved those funds stopped flowing, and NASA had no way to maintain those expensive rockets.

So NASA came up with a reusable spacecraft design, the Space Shuttle. But DoD wanted the shuttle to have a certain payload capacity/features for their use cases and that forced NASA to change their original design, which also made it a maintenance nightmare.

In hindsight, Space Shuttle would have achieved its mission of being a cheap reusable spacecraft, if NASA were able to use its original design.

Not really, they could have gone forward with either program with the budget they had. They would have to do some cuts, but it was not completly unviable.

> In hindsight, Space Shuttle would have achieved its mission of being a cheap reusable spacecraft, if NASA were able to use its original design.

There are lots of ifs and buts and I blaming everything on the DoD and not make NASA responsable for anything is false narrative. NASA made a lot of mistakes to even get to that point.

> Not really, they could have gone forward with either program with the budget they had

The goal of Space Shuttle was to reduce the cost of space flight.

It blows my mind that SpaceX's BFR project plans to send more payload in reusable mode than Saturn V did in full expendable mode (150,000 kg vs 140,000 kg).

And for less money per launch then the F9.

This capacity is only for a fully expendable vehicle (See http://www.spacex.com/about/capabilities). Reusable payload is subtantially less, although not specified on their website.

Also it's 140000 lbs, or 63800kg.

The poster you are replying to was talking about the BFR not the Falcon Heavy

The Saturn could send an M1 Abrams into space with 50 tons to spare for fuel and ammo.

I recently took a tour of SpaceX due to a friend and learned that their rockets, unlike most others, are constructed horizontally. This makes logistics for getting them upright an engineering feat, but it also makes construction and maintenance easier for crew - you can rotate the rocket and access almost any part of the rocket from ground level.

I'm curious to know more about the engineering constraints/trade-offs this puts the rockets under, so if anyone knows more I'd love to hear it!

This is the standard way the russian operate. Rockets as the Soyuz or the Proton are assembled and transported horizontally to the launching site and then erected on the launch pad. There are a lot of interesting photos of trains moving these large rockets

This is the way all rockets are built. I think the OP is confusing construction and integration.

Rockets are fabricated and transported horizontally. The distinction is whether the rocket is vertical or horizontal when the payload is attached.

Thanks, didn't know the distinction!

"All" is taking things a little far -- the Apollo Saturn V stack was assembled vertically (as were the smaller Saturn IB rockets when launched from LC 39).

Yeah, I was a little ambiguous with the term "rocket". "Rocket stages" would have been more accurate. Most rockets that use vertical integration use it to assemble the various stages (i.e. the upper stage and payload are both mated to the booster in the vertical integration facility)

There's a really good scene in Apollo 13 that shows this. Jim Lovell is giving a tour of the VAB and in the background you've got two of the stages coming together with a thud.

Some good discussion here: https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/3922/what-are-the-...

Essentially it boils down to what g-forces your rocket components and payload are able to withstand. Designing for zero (in orbit) and high vertical (during liftoff) is tough enough, but a rocket that's horizontally built/integrated _also_ needs to withstand ~1G laterally. It may not sound like a big deal, but when every kg counts, I believe it adds up to a bunch of additional strengthening parts, plus a lot more FEA at design time.

Space X has regularly focused on lower costs at the expense of payload. Their rockets get significantly less to orbit, but the price saving ends up being huge which more than offsets the loss.

That depends on what you mean by "constructed". The individual stages of all rockets are constructed horizontally. The difference is in how the stages and payload are integrated.

With a rocket like the Atlas V, the upper stage and payload are integrated with the first stage while it is vertical. This is a common approach taken with rockets that frequently fly satellites with big mirrors in them (if the payload is never tipped on its side, it's a lot easier to secure the heavy optics inside).

SpaceX does not currently support vertical integration, they only support horizontal integration. Generally speaking customers prefer vertical integration, since it makes their payload design easier (and in some cases it's a hard requirement), so SpaceX will be adding vertical integration support at their LC-39A launch pad (mostly for government launches).

This must be helpful for transporting the rocket by truck for reuse (see youtu.be/qohKt8ckCS4). If the rocket remained vertical, the drone ship would have to dock very close to the launch pad.

Yes! Fingers crossed, and can't wait for the actual launch!

Photos from Elon Musk, mentioned in the Techcrunch article:

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bc62hfJgf8K/

Looking at the last one... that's an amount of engine nozzles I've never seen together before, beyond works of sci-fi and (obviously) Kerbal Space Program.

Is there any way to see something posted on Instagram without an account?

Edit: still had the app installed. Nothing to see here....

Yes, click the link.

If you like that, you'll love the N1! http://i.imgur.com/6t2S5zu.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N1_(rocket)

Their central booster is also using refurbished engines. That's is really awesome!

The thought of lighting up 27 rocket engines in unison is absolutely crazy. Then again, SpaceX thrives on crazy ideas like reusing rockets, which are now the norm.

Good luck to them. Will be interesting to watch this beast launch!

IIRC, the engines do not light up simultaneously, ignition is staggered.

It's not exactly "unison" (it is indeed very tightly coordinated though). The engines will be lit in pairs, with a couple dozen milliseconds between each set starting up.

How on earth are all your answers so informative and authoritative? Do you work in the industry? SpaceX employee? Enthusiast?

Honestly; thank you for taking the time to spread the knowledge.

Just a passionate enthusiast with some friends in the industry.

Here's a source on the engines being started in pairs: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2017/11/spacex-aims-december...

Relevant quote from that link:

"Instead, Falcon Heavy will take a page from the Space Shuttle’s book and will employ a staggered start sequence – like main engine start on Shuttle where each main engine started 120 milliseconds after the previous.

For Falcon Heavy, it is understood that two engines will be lit simultaneously followed by the next two… and so on until all 27 are up and running."

Well, thanks very much. Go Falcon Heavy!

/r/SpaceX [0] is very very informative

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/

It can be, but the moderation is very heavy handed... I don't tend to visit there much anymore.

That's why it's informative.

It's rarely the only (or even first) source of any particular piece of information, and with only a couple new posts a day from "approved" posters, there's just not enough there to warrant visiting often.

r/SpaceXLounge for the same people with less moderation

I read this thread much deeper than I normally would because of the interesting comments that user made, thanks indeed!

I am super excited about this. It would have the capability to throw some pretty useful chunks of hardware into orbit and beyond.

And of course Blue Origin has a lot riding on this as well :-) If SpaceX can get the heavy operational before BO gets the New Glenn operational, its going to be that much harder for Bezos to find any customers left for his rocket.

Or it will give investors confidence that private space flight is viable?

I think it will open up additional customers. So perhaps Apple will build and launch a couple of imagery satellites to augment their maps effort, or something like the old Teledesic concept will be launched (SpaceX has suggested they would do that).

Given the lower costs of the re-usable platform one would hope we could effectively address some of the space junk issues.

But that isn't really "private space flight" where I imagine tourists flying up to Bigelow inflated habititats for a three day stay where couples can experiment with zero g sex after getting over their motion sickness issues. That market seems a bit fanciful yet.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teledesic

A rising tide lifts all ships.

Strictly speaking, Jeff Bezos doesn't need any customers for his rocket.

In a strict sense that is true, and he has a customer for the engine so he gets some revenue that way. I expect however that he would eventually taper off his funding of it if there wasn't some momentum from other participants.

There's going to be so much space business to go around in the coming ~20 years as these systems come online and bring costs down, that we'll need more than whatever launch volume SpaceX and Blue Origin can muster. They'll be turning away business.

Great. Can you say where that business is going to come from? Satellite launches? Supporting what markets?

I'm wondering if there is a 'Space Market Outlook 2020 and beyond' report by some research agency I could peruse.

There are a couple of things.

There are multiple companies trying to build constellations requiring 1000s of satellites. These are in planning both for communication and for earth imaging.

There are of course ongoing launches for government, GPS, military, NASA supply, probes and so on. There are also many other governments globally that want their own communications, and very often the launch on commercial providers.

Both SpaceX and BlueOrigin have plans to do tourist launches and if the rockets are as reusable as we hope they are, the cost of these could drop where is is at least another piece in the demand that allows the price to drop.

Many of these companies also have their own plans that will require some amount of launches.

Longer terms mining and manufacturing could be interesting as well.

You can find a lot of these analysis all over the place. Of course depending on who is sponsoring them the market is either huge or non existent.

This was a comment their CEO made in May;

"Shotwell said SpaceX is “investing hundreds of millions” of dollars into production capacity for Falcon 9, and that the company also invested at this high level last year.

“We will definitely catch up,” she said. " -- http://spacenews.com/shotwell-on-spacex-launch-backlog-we-wi...

They anticipate getting time to re-fly down around 24 hrs for a F9 booster. I'm just wondering what happens if we have something that has never existed ever in the world before, excess launch capacity. What is the clearing price for that? If SpaceX really gets it down to $10 - $15M/launch just how many things can you put up there?

Looking for 'launch backlog' or 'launch capacity forecast' or 'space launch business outlook' are remarkably ill served by Google's index. This is probably the best result -- https://brycetech.com/downloads/Commercial_Space_Transportat... and it is pretty thin.

> There's going to be so much space business to go around in the coming ~20 years as these systems come online and bring costs down

Why? I agree that demand will go up with an decrease in costs but I see no reason why they would not price their offerings in such a way that they maximize ROI, IE, not so cheap that they will be turning customers away, just expensive enough to match what the market will bear.

The only thing that would cause them to turn customers away is when there is a shortage of launch capacity at a set price-point, the solution then is to raise the price.

Blue already has at least three customers for New Glenn:

http://spacenews.com/blue-origin-signs-up-third-customer-for...

They have 27 engines, but the Soviet N1 still holds the record at 30[1]. For comparison the Saturn V first stage had 5.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N1_(rocket)

It holds the record for the number of engines but it never successfully flew more than about a minute and three of them blew up on the pad. Hopefully that will be different for FH.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m79UO4HOQmc

Only 1 failed due to some engine issue though. The rest was guidance related I think.*

Tell you what why don't I actually read the wiki

1. Electronics issue

2. turbo pump exploded - material science

3. aerodynamics

4. blew the plumbing when 6 engines were planned shut down at higher altitude. I'd argue that's a control issue.

The first launch did not fail due to that electronics issue though that was one of the first things to go wrong.

The propellant leak caused by Engine #2 issues is what caused the rocket to fail.

Maybe if they had not shut them down that abruptly they could have avoided that particular failure mode.

All in all a pity that that program got cancelled, I still think it is one of the most beautiful rockets ever built.

I think it's also on the list for biggest non nuclear explosions ever.

Fun fact, the difference is because the Soviet designers chose to guide the rocket by varying the thrust between many small fixed engines. The American designers chose to have a few large engines that could turn slightly.

I wonder which method the Falcon Heavy uses.

All F9 engines are gimballed. The center engines can gimbal further though, for extra control authority when landing.

The many smaller engines approach is useful for re-using boosters. When coming back in to land, the stage is almost empty, so very light compared to when it launched. The problem then is reducing thrust far enough to be able to do a propulsive landing. Even with one F9 engine lit, and it throttled down, there's still too much thrust to hover, so the timing has to be really good to reach zero velocity at zero altitude.

What's your source for that? I'd have assumed that the reason was the engineering effort required to produce an engine the size of the American F-1, leading to smaller engines, at which point it becomes more natural to steer with variable thrust than with gimballed engines.

The Soviets didn't produce anything rivaling the F-1 until the RD-170 in the mid-80s, and that uses 4 thrust chambers instead of 1 as the F-1.

After a few more design iterations I'm sure it'll exceed 30.

http://i.imgur.com/BX1HXkr.png

I can still play back in my head the picture of those 5 engines roaring to life. Followed by the magic word "Liftoff!"

Sticking a car in the payload is funny.

But this thing is going further from the earth than all but a few dozen man-made things in history. I have to wonder if some scientist has been waiting their entire life for an opportunity like this, and we're blowing it on a Tesla Roadster?

If it blows up on launch, losing a Roadster is less painful than what that scientist poured years of his/her life into.

The cost of launching something into low earth orbit is about 50K per pound (before spaceX) so I can imagine an interplanetary trajectory is quite a lot more. At this rate there are probably a lot of science projects that will never be funded, so if I had a less popular proposal I might take those odds.

The problem is time. They need to launch when they are ready, it would take years for a scientific payload to be designed for this launch. Plus we could not invest so much because the risk.

They should just test it and then the scientists can argue for cheaper and larger projects because they have a rocket option now.

My guess is Musk is launching a Roadster because he's a fan of the movie Heavy Metal

https://youtu.be/rYy_XJpI6uk?t=1m45s

I note the 'fins' at the top of the outside rockets are black, whereas on the middle one are white. Is that purely cosmetic?

The grid fins on the outer cores are aluminium, the centre core is titanium. Newer Falcons will have titanium grid fins (the outer cores have already flown once before)

Edit. Looking closer I'm wrong - the titanium grid fins are on the side boosters and the the centre core is aluminium

Guessing, but it is likely for visibility.

The grid fins on the side boosters are made from titanium (and are larger), while the center core's ones are made from aluminum with an ablative paint. The titanium grid fins have a better heat resistance.

The titanium grid fins are also larger, which gives them better control authority. The center booster (like regular Falcon 9s) carries the interstage. This is light weight, but has significant aerodynamic effect when re-entering engines first for landing, like the feathers on an arrow. The side boosters lack this - the nose coses are much smaller - so are less stable aerodynamically. The likely reason for using the titanium fins is to give better control. They don't need the extra heat resistance for the side boosters - the center booster will have a toastier reentry as it's going much faster when it shuts down.

Ablative material to avoid frying the aluminum.

No, the ablative material is white (like on the center core). The darker fins are the fancy new titanium fins (note they're a little larger too).

Not sure why they went with the new fins on the side cores and not the center core... The side cores are going to have a pretty tame reentry (gentler than a Falcon 9 to LEO), while the center core will be coming in very hot. Currently they only use the titanium fins on very hot GTO reentries.

Ah right, thank you.

On the SpaceX subreddit, I've seen a few mention that it's probably because of the different aerodynamics with a nose cone; they need more control authority in that case.

According to this[0] there is still a Falcon 9 Zuma launch scheduled for 2017. Anyone know if that is still happening? I ask because it happens that I'll be in the Canaveral area right after Christmas and would love to see the launch in person!

[0] https://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/launches-and-events/event...

I have a sudden desire for a $10/year SaaS that will send you SMS or other push notifications as soon as rocket launch dates (ones with public viewing allowed) are formally announced, so that you can quickly make plans to go. Maybe the app could even make some extra cash by linking to available hotel deals in the area in the notifications, and then taking a cut of the reservations through click-through tracking.

YouTube reminders already does this for free.

SpaceX Now (https://spacexnow.com) on iOS and Android can do something similar with notifications enabled for manifest changes.

You can sync this Google Calendar if you want. It has up to date info about all space events (Dockings, Landings, EVAs)

http://bit.ly/SpaceEventCalendar

https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/ is usually the best place to learn about SpaceX launches. The 'about' part of that page has the current schedule. Jan 4 is the current NET date for Zuma.

Thanks! I really should have thought of that. :)

Totally OT, but when hearing "Falcon 9 Zuma launch", I couldn't help but think of the song "Chase the Devil"[0] :-)

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjGb56hX9WE

If I was Elon Musk, and launching something like this, the reason my Roadster would be the payload is because I would be attempting to land it on the Moon or Mars. It's electric, so it should be able to drive around :)

I wonder if that is possible. The weight of the car is much less than the 140,000 pound payload it could carry, so it could be sent much further if they wanted to.

If he manages to land his Roadster on Mars (intact - which is probably the hardest part), how many stars will it get on a NHTSA crash test ?

The tesla sadly lacks the ability to do a propulsive landing on mars, they'd need a sky crane like Curiosity had - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Science_Laboratory#Sky_cr...

I'm pretty sure the batteries and motors are cooled by air (directly or not).

Cool idea haha. I'd guess it'd probably get messed up from lack of air and/or too much exposure to radiation or something though.

I was going to reply just to tell you how dumb that is, but then I double checked, and the Falcon Heavy can put a 38,000 lb payload into Mars injection orbit. Thats enough for a big set of retro-rockets, a sky-crane landing system, some solar cells to recharge it, and a robot to drive it around.

For reference, Curiosity weighed 2000 lbs, somewhere between 50% and 75% of what the new roadster will weigh. The MSL payload that landed Curiosity weighed 8,600 lbs total, so yeah- you could probably land two or three roadsters!

They're not going to try to land the car and drive it - The car is going to be put into orbit around mars indefinitely, so that one day an alien species can find it, long after we're gone.

that needs to be a plot point for the new ST series :-)

It won't be orbiting Mars, it will pass by Mars.

Not going to land or even orbit Mars.

From a response from Elon Musk:

> It’s going near Mars. He said it’ll be placed in “a precessing Earth-Mars elliptical orbit around the sun.” What he means by this is what’s sometimes called a Hohmann transfer orbit, an orbit around the Sun that takes it as close to the Sun as Earth and as far out as Mars. This is a low-energy orbit; that is, it takes the least amount of energy to put something in this orbit from Earth. That makes sense for a first flight.

http://www.syfy.com/syfywire/elon-musk-on-the-roadster-to-ma...

It's great that he is launching his own car as the payload but I would really like to see that replaced by an Oldsmobile Starfire.

Anyone know the logistics of watching the launch? Is there a public viewing spot? Do you need to get tickets? Where to park?

For launches out of the Kennedy Space Center, see https://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/launches-and-events/event....

Example of past availability: https://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/launches-and-events/event...

Check out the Kennedy Space Center website, they always post viewing options in advance. Typically the most intense viewing experience (i.e. the closest, the LC39 viewing gantry for instance) will be of limited quantity, but you can also just watch from the KSC visitor complex although in that case you won’t be able to see the rocket on the launch pad, only once it’s airborne.

I can highly recommend going. I saw a launch in January, from the LC39 gantry, and it was truly stunning. Be prepared to go several days in a row though, in case of scrubbed launches. You’ll need to buy a new ticket if the launch gets scrubbed as well, they don’t issue refunds once you’ve left on the shuttle bus I think, so it’s worth thinking about when budgeting the trip.

Also, pro-tip: get a yearly pass. Gets you in to the visitor complex as much as you want for a year, and becomes economical after two or three admission tickets, and also includes parking which is $10 or so otherwise I think. I got a yearly pass, and saved on admission and parking a fair bit since I went back probably 5-6 times. The launch I saw was scrubbed once. The other times I just geeked out. ;o)

Can anyone say what they will do during the first real launch? Where would they be trying to go to? How does a test like that work? I love space, I just have no idea how they actually would do a test of that magnitude.

They will launch Musk's Tesla Roadster into orbit around the sun, where it will continue orbiting for hundreds of millions of years.

>> They will launch Musk's Tesla Roadster into orbit around the sun, where it will continue orbiting for hundreds of millions of years.

Good god that's funny. I didn't realize the roadster was going anywhere, so it seemed stupid. But just imagine once people forget about this in 50 years. Perhaps we even have people on mars. But every few years someone post to the equivalent of HN a link to a wikipedia article about this car orbiting the sun... Or what if modern society suffers a setback (an actual nuclear war or something) and knowledge of this is forgotten and centuries hence, people redevelop technology and get images of it. Best joke ever.

Wouldn't be the first time we rediscovered something we shot out there and sorta forgot about.

If I recall correctly, a few years ago an astronomer detected something drifting pretty far away with weird visual characteristics. It turned out to be a big piece of metal discarded from one of the Apollo missions, painted white, still tumbling through space.

Or we succeed with the path we're starting to tread. And in less than a century there's a museum built around the car where people of all sorts, some perhaps even born on different planets, are free to visit and observe what would be utterly symbolic of the advent of private industry and deep space.

The first launch will be a "dummy" payload (nothing a customer is paying for). Elon has said on Twitter that they will be launching his Telsa Roadster out past Mars (there has been some discussion about how serious he was in this claim, but the general consensus among people who are pretty well connected with SpaceX is that he was indeed serious).

You gotta wonder about that. I'd sure like to see some pictures of a Tesla Roadster being integrated into the payload section of the rocket.

On the mars orbit thing - I think we have people who try to make sure that we don't contaminate Mars with Earth bacteria any more than we can avoid. You would think people would take a dim view of sticking a random car in Mars orbit, where it will probably decay and crash to the surface eventually.

It's not going to be in Mars orbit as there will be no insertion burn. It's a Mars flyby after which it will remain in solar orbit for the foreseeable future.

> I think we have people who try to make sure that we don't contaminate Mars with Earth bacteria any more than we can avoid.

Given Elon Musk's goal is explicitly to colonize Mars, this is probably the least of his worries.

That makes me wonder too - if he has the money and the rockets, can he just go ahead and set up a colony on Mars, or will some Government or combination of Governments object? Do the people of Earth generally have a right to have some level of say in who can set up a colony on Mars and what they can do with it, or can a couple of dozen rich guys just do whatever they feel like?

They can do pretty much what they want unless there is a political movement in multiple countries to stop it. In other words, there has to be profit for a bunch politicians to stop it or what they're doing has to be highly morally unpalatable. Given there is no apparent profit for Elon Musk in going to Mars in the first place, it's unlikely a bunch of politicians will find profit in stopping him. There's probably votes in smoothing things over for him because hope always wins more votes than negativity.

They're going to launch Elon Musk's Telsa Roadster into orbit of the sun, possibly to Mars orbit.

I'm not even joking. That's the goal.

I often think of this kind of whimsical angle when I read other news stories about various archaeological and historical discoveries. There’s always so much discussion on how a particular statue is “the cultural center of the community” or that a jeweled box was of “great religious significance”.

How do we know that the Elon Musk of 3000BC didn’t just build a big obelisk for the lulz?

Probably a bigger question of the problems of inferring great significance from extremely few samples...

I’ve thought the same. There are these rock carvings from forever ago around here, and whenever somebody visits who’s never seen something like that before I just say they are probably tweets from forever ago.

“This one over here is what someone had for lunch. I think ‘twas chicken.”

That sort of thing.

I agree. On a related note, I still believe this to be most plausible explanation of the Voynich Manuscript:

https://xkcd.com/593/

Yep. He said "Mars transfer orbit."

I find it disappointing, however, that a worthy scientific payload isn't being launched. There was a late cancellation of a moon orbiter mission a few years back because of European Space Agency budget concerns (http://www.esa.int/Education/ESA_concludes_student_ESMO_Moon...). Could they not have adapted something for a Mars mission?

Seems a waste to send an automobile advertisement into orbit around Mars for eternity.

>Seems a waste to send an automobile advertisement into orbit around Mars for eternity.

Especially since Red Bull will probably pay a lot of money to have a crash test dummy in a space suit strapped to a dirtbike with a Red Bull zip-tied into his hand, a GoPro on his helmet and some solar panels dangling somewhere broadcasting a live stream for the next handful of decades.

Do you know how much attention yet another orbiter would get? China literally landed on the moon -- the first time anything had soft landed on the moon in 37 years -- and they made some revolutionary discoveries. And nobody cared. Sending a car into orbit of Mars while literally playing Space Oddity, on loop - with a live stream available. That is something that would get massive coverage.

The coverage is not just an advertisement for SpaceX and Tesla, but for space in general. News has turned into sensationalistic drivel, driven by clicks than any sort of value. Little of what's seen on the news today will matter in 10 months, and you'd scarcely find a morsel that will matter in 10 years. This makes the absence of space coverage quite peculiar. 100 years, 100 centuries - the steps we are taking today, after a decades long haitus, into space will define the future we will all live in. If it takes being absurd to get peoples' attention in a world of clickbait, sensationalism, and drama - then, by all means, be absurd.

A big part of the reason it's difficult to get funding for space is because nobody cares. Oh look NASA's orbiter suggests our "recurring slope linaea", or RSL - an acronym more reminiscent of something a pharma ad suggested you may want to ask your doctor about than an unexplained phenomena that ought spark the imagination - may be water! How amazing is that! No, we have no real pictures and no.. we're not going to send the rover that direction.. and have no real plans to do so because of a 50 year old treaty. But think about it... in part because that's all anybody can do! Oh shit, another study just made a strong argument that the water is indeed just dust after all. Oh well. Maybe we just need another orbiter.

You're not sending an automobile into space, you're trying to capture and inspire the hearts and minds of the people. And not just the cliche nonsense of thinking of the children, but of all people. Because this experiment, if it succeeds, will probably have been the most interesting and exciting thing done in space in the past 40 years. Or we could beg for enough morsels to send another orbiter.

Considering the risk with this initial launch, short of a very low budget package, I think most researchers would prefer to wait for a safer launch.

Prudence from greedo on the topic of first shots?

They probably don't want to send expensive science payload on the first test flight of a new launch system, in case of catastrophic failure or such.

> I find it disappointing, however, that a worthy scientific payload isn't being launched.

It would also be disappointing if a worthy scientific payload were to be blown up on launch, an event which Musk seems to think is quite likely.

He's doing expectation management. If he thought it would fail they wouldn't fly.

I don't think this is true.

I think if Musk had to wager he'd bet that this launch is not completely successful. It still makes sense to fly it though. You hope to learn enough to make the second or third attempt a success.

This isn’t necessarily true. They know that there are unknown unknowns at play here, as nothing quite like FH has ever flown. There is a non-negligible chance of something unforeseen rearing its ugly head, and if you’re just launching a lulz payload, that’s fine.

The Roadster is the PR payload. The real payload is the set of all the sensors & transmitters in the rocket. They'll be getting a lot of engineering data whether it is a successful launch or not.

Yeah, of course, the main thing is to test the rocket and that's valuable by itself.

But still, couldn't there be SOMETHING more useful to mankind than a giant paperweight to send into orbit around Mars?

My sources say that his Roadster is already orbiting the sun.

Mars would be a new thing. If this fails it will still be orbiting the sun, but as a distributed cluster this time.

Makes me wonder how well a Tesla Roadster would hold up when exposed to hard vacuum. They probably have a nice sized high vacuum chamber to put this to the test before they launch it.

Funny how this will probably be the best preserved Tesla Roadster in a couple of decades.

The test itself is to launch the second stage towards the orbeit. The big question is, can they make the three cores work as well, as the single F9 core does?

As they have excessive load capacity for the second stage with this test mission, but no commecial cargo to transport, if Elons tweets are to believed, they plan to send his 2008 Tesla Roadster into a Mars orbit. Beyond winning any award for sillyness, if SpaceX manages to do that, it would be the first private mission to the Mars orbit, which would be another big feat.

Can anyone explain why SpaceX is not going to invest in falcon heavy long run (switching to BFR instead)?

A recent video of Elon mentioned that it was really hard to strap them together, but if they've overcome that, why build BFR?

What's BFR?

the Big Falcon Rocket - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BFR_(rocket)

Big F..alcon Rocket.

Big Fucking Rocket

Fairing diameter of Falcon heavy is rather smaller than BFR and BFR should be cheaper.

Not to mention that BFR can carry approx 3x the payload of Falcon Heavy to LEO

I think the BFR is just the next logical step. One more size of rocket you can use to do more things. BFR is also simpler, being one big rocket with one landing to do rather than 3 synchronized rockets with 3 landings.

Plus faring size is much bigger on the BFR, which is needed for the Mars plans.

> Can anyone explain why SpaceX is not going to invest in falcon heavy long run (switching to BFR instead)?

He argued exactly why in his 2nd presentation (with the revised and smaller BFR).

His belief is that a launch of the BFR will actually be cheaper than a launch of a Falcon Heavy, or even a Falcon 9. This isn't accounting for payload, he was saying the cost of of single launch would be lower for the BFR - it's a bombastic claim.

Having read about this subject, I can at least grok the economic argument. SpaceX is already in the rocket reuse business, and over the long run their costs will limit to the costs involved with refurbishment. Falcon Heavy will always have a higher operational cost because of the management of the 3 separate cores. Having only a single massive core offers obvious cost reduction.

There's also the business case for reducing the number of products they are supporting. Since the large rocket can launch small payloads, they can just use it for all their customers. Cost savings come in the form of simplification of the company's processes. Again, since they are now a rocket reuse business, this is possibly their primary cost driver.

While I understand that all in business terms, they're missing a critical component - sufficient proven demand to support enough volume to justify these investments and consolidation. Right now, there are not enough customers in the world to justify an investment to replace all Falcons with BFRs. They have an answer to that (however flawed), and that answer is simply "Mars".

> While I understand that all in business terms, they're missing a critical component - sufficient proven demand to support enough volume to justify these investments

Probably BFR will lower the launch cost low enough that would create new customers.

Absolutely this; also current customers can launch cheaper satellites, because they're easier to replace. For example, spend $500M on a satellite that has to have extreme reliability due to high launch cost and availability, or $50M on one you can replace at whim.

>> His belief is that a launch of the BFR will actually be cheaper than a launch of a Falcon Heavy, or even a Falcon 9.

I didn't think he actually said it'd be cheaper. If it's not, there will be room for a competitor.

>> There's also the business case for reducing the number of products they are supporting.

That was my take on what he said, and if there's a case for BFR then perhaps it makes sense.

>> Right now, there are not enough customers in the world to justify an investment to replace all Falcons with BFRs. They have an answer to that (however flawed), and that answer is simply "Mars".

Nice thing about a private company. Elon doesn't really have to answer to anyone. Well, actually he's got enough investors that maybe he does, but they all understand his goals are bigger than just making money. BFR will be the ferry to mars and that opens a door. Nobody know what lies behind that door and I think his investors want to know as much as anyone.

Well, apart from a first stage that's designed to be re-used more often, there's also a second stage that's designed for re-use (and no fairings that are ditched). So simply by not throwing anything away (except for reaction mass) they have a cost advantage (assuming everything works as planned). And at least the F9 first stage has proven to be considerably cheaper to refurbish than the the Space Shuttle, so I'm confident that they won't fall into the trap of having re-use at a cost that's way above throwing the hardware away after every launch.

> I didn't think he actually said it'd be cheaper

He absolutely said it would be cheaper, indeed that it was fundamental to the project. Here's slide in his presentation:

https://youtu.be/tdUX3ypDVwI?t=25m9s

Yea, the BFR is designed to be fully re-usable, unlike the partial re-usability of the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy. Which is why Musk believes it will be far cheaper than either.

Now Elon has always been excessively optimistic, but in the long run he's probably right (More likely in BFR2 or BFR3, than first BFR design, in my opinion).

You just launch a bunch of small payloads at the same time. As long as you have enough customers then the cost per payload could indeed be lower.

This only works if the payloads are all destined for similar orbits. Which does indeed happen often, since there are a few useful orbits that are used most commonly. But you can’t simply batch all your payloads together.

> Right now, there are not enough customers in the world to justify an investment to replace all Falcons with BFRs. They have an answer to that (however flawed), and that answer is simply "Mars".

I agree, they are taking on huge risk attempting something on the scale of BFR. It seems likely that development will take much longer than planned giving their competitors time to catch up.

Hit the nail on the head.

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2017/11/blue-origin-2020-deb...

^ this was a tremendously good article about Blue Origin. I can't recommend it enough. If you can read closely, you can see the tiny little business-sense decisions that are obviously learned from SpaceX's experience. They go even further, with a lot of things that look like what BFR should have been but isn't shaping up to be. Consider the plans for rapid manufacture of the (disposable) 2nd stage. I would love 2nd stage reusability, but we might just not be there yet. Blue Origin could close the loop enough by manufacturing them right next to where they're flown at low cost.

The large first-stage core seems to be the ticket too. The piping between 3 cores starts to sound enough like the Shuttle experience. Reuse of a single first stage core is going great. No need to rock the boat, just continue to improve refurbishment processes.

Also keep in mind that Bezos is like scary ruthless. I've read several books, and it really comes through in the conflict Amazon had earlier on with similar book sellers. No one took him seriously enough, because they didn't understand what kind of businessman he is. He is out to crush. Now, he has virtually unlimited resources and is targeting his life-long dream.

Spending a year on pursuing the wrong size-class and the wrong second stage technology is likely to leave you a bug on his windshield.

That is a good article. Hadn't seen a complete description of New Glenn before, thanks. I'm very curious to see how the economics pencil out.

I'm a little skeptical that it will be possible for Blue Origin to catch SpaceX with the first iteration of their rocket. It took SpaceX a while to master all of the competencies to get where they are, with a number of setbacks (and explosions) along the way. Its likely Blue Origin will face a number of those all well before they are routinely launching reused rockets like SpaceX is today.

So, I'd guess SpaceX has about 5 years before it has to worry about Blue Origin.

The Falcon 9's second stage wasn't designed to be reusable, and I'd imagine there are quite a few lessons learned they'd like to incorporate in a totally new vehicle instead of attempting to rework the F9.

BFR is vastly more capable. Falcon Heavy is mostly reusable and can send a capsule to Mars. BFR is 100% reusable and can send a hundred people to Mars.

FH is (1) not big enough for economic Mars flights, and (2) cannot be fully reusable because it can't support a large enough upper stage.

The difference in size is huge 140000t to 64t.

A single core makes more sense, specially because you can put a bigger space ship on top for a rocket of equal power.

The 3 core design is only a economic way to get a bigger rocket with a existing design. Look at the Delta 4 Heavy for example.

Is the Falcon one of their recycled rockets. SpaceX launched the Bulgarian satellite using a recycled rocket and is using recycled rocket more and more but I can't find any information on Falcon as to whether it's a recycled rocket or not. https://latechnews.org/spacex-launches-bulgariasat-1-recycle...

It so happens that the first Falcon Heavy will use recycled rockets for the 2 side cores.

I find it interesting that not only is this rocket literally three Falcon 9s strapped together (including two that are reused) but they've not even taken the legs off. They don't look like they're going to unfold very well, though.

They haven't taken the legs off because they're going to attempt to land all 3 cores, probably 2 at the launch site and 1 on the drone ship

That's extra-impressive, then.

The three cores are boing to seperate from each other during the flight, and then are planned to individually land after the mission. The two outer cores are going to separate first, while the center core continues to propel the second stage a bit further up.

In case you are wondering about the fuel, the centre core throttles back as much as it can shortly after liftoff and then throttles up again after the two side boosters separate.

Can anyone comment on the rationale behind having 27 engines? IIRC this was a fundamental reason why the Soviet N1 was so consistently unreliable. It seems like probability is kind of a pain in the ass here, no?

Falcon 9 does have engine out capability and that's been proven in the past on CRS-1. In theory even if one of the engines were to rupture the shrapnel should be contained by walls between the engines. Having less engines per core would mean an engine out condition is much harder to recover from as you would lose more thrust. If an engine goes out you don't just lose that single engine, you need to make sure that the thrust vector is still pointed straight at the center of mass. If you don't, then you'll get torque on the vehicle that will make the flight end sooner rather than later. If you plan for engine failure to not kill your primary payload you need to be able to use a combination of thrust vectoring and gimbaling engines and still be able to get the payload to an acceptable orbit with the reduced capacity. More engines means more chances that one of them will fail but less severe consequences when that failure occurs.

I'm not sure I understand your question. Falcon Heavy has 27 engines because three times nine is twenty-seven. Are you suggesting SpaceX should have developed a bigger engine instead, and do something similar to a delta-IV heavy?

Any odds makers taking bets on this, I wonder? I'd put down $100 on the off chance it actually works the first time!

https://www.reddit.com/r/HighStakesSpaceX/

The shot of the engines looks like an awesome screencap from KSP. Can’t wait to see this thing head to space.

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