>SpaceX unveiled the grand plan for the Falcon Heavy to the public at a Washington DC news conference in April 2011, with initial test flight expected in 2013.
>The maiden voyage of the Falcon Heavy is currently tentatively scheduled for launch on December 29, 2017
Will it fly this year? Place your bets Veeky Forums
strawpoll.me
Also SpaceX shills thread.
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That must be an old picture i don’t think that they are using that engine configuration anymore.
It will just explode again.
You're most likely right.
Here is a current one. Ready for exp... test fire.
>In July 2017, Musk discussed publicly the challenges of testing a complex launch vehicle like the three-core Falcon Heavy. There is a large extent of the new design "that is really impossible to test on the ground" and cannot really be tested until flight tests begin
>When Falcon Heavy lifts off in 2017, it will be the most powerful operational rocket in the world by a factor of two. With the ability to lift into orbit over 54 metric tons
(currently it is said to lift 63.8 metric tonnes)
>Only the Saturn V moon rocket, last flown in 1973, delivered more payload to orbit.
Can they even get 63 tons into the shroud they have for those things?
The Shuttle, for example, had a freaking huge payload bay in comparison. Delta has some pretty big shrouds in comparison, Ariane is pretty big too.
Must be clowns.
no the Falcon upper stage can only handle like 12 tons payload or something
They won't be doing big payloads to LEO any time soon
/thread
A valid point. The 63 tons figure is mostly for comparison with other launch vehicle capability. No customer actually has a payload or combination of payloads that heavy, esp. to LEO.
Fortunately, with the reusable booster design SpaceX can trade excess performance for fuel, making it easier to land the boosters and first stage.
Falcon Heavy is really targeted at NRO's heaviest spysats (like Hubble, but pointed toward Earth), vanity space stations like Bigelow, and maybe a round-the-moon trip for jaded billionaires. Nothing else needs that capacity.
What if you can pack couple of satellites from different customers on a single flight? It should lower the cost. Seams especially feasable for GEO.
It will probably not make the first flight window. Not only will it be the first time all 3 stacks are flight ready during launch countdown, but the 3 stacks make it a bit more likely for a critical problem it arrise and need to be dealt with in the first place. Also weather chance to scrub it on top of that means it'll probably miss the first window.
I don't know when the next window is but the press kit will probably include that closer to launch. If it does miss the first window or first few, it might end up sitting on the pad until 2018 and launch early January. Also probably going to explode up until maxQ
>Nothing else needs that capacity.
So how the fuck is BFR ever supposed to work economically?
That's a big rocket
By very obviously spreading costs among many passengers. Watch ticket prices be by the kilo rather than seat. BFR doesn't need to reach orbital speed anyway.
they can if they are lifting depleted uranium
>Gets hit by another projectile during launch
>Humans are quarantined
>From our earliest moments looking up at the stars, we were not allowed to leave
Wait, you really think they're going forward with that transportation via space meme?
The whole thing falls flat on its face already simply because 90% of people on every launch will vomit their guts out. Hell, a rocket launch could probably be a severe health risk to a lot of people if you didn't hand-pick and train them like anyone else we've so far strapped to a rocket.
That whole transportation via rocket idea is just dumb bait for investors.
...
If the costs really become that low, new demand will come. You could launch a whole space station in it. Every country and their mothers would want into that, if not for the stations, for anything else. That besides launching multiple satellites at once. You could finally start putting useful things on the moon, like telescopes or equipment for fuel manufacturing, research stations etc. You could also finally start thinking about asteroid mining and deep space manufacturing.
It spreads its costs over 100 flights as opposed to a different rocket that has to incur all its costs on a single flight because it throws parts away. Those thrown away parts are more expensive than 1/100th the cost of the big rocket.
Yes it's old, there's also no legs on it
This is what it looks like now - still got 9 engines, but 8 of them are in a circular configuration, with 1 in the centre
They do have to be able to sell 100 flights of the big rocket though.
So I sure hope any of this:materializes once the first BFR is built. Because otherwise they'll just have to go back to Falcons forever.
I thought the whole point of the BFR is that it's superior in every way to the Falcon 9 including price.
Like the exact same price tag can throw up 20 tons now or 150 tons then, so why even bother with the 20 ton model?
>I thought the whole point of the BFR is that it's superior in every way to the Falcon 9 including price.
It's more effective per kilo. Not in total.
So if everyone just keeps coming to them with current satellites in current numbers, that wouldn't fill up the rocket. So launching BFRs under those circumstances would be uneconomical over Falcons.
The thing is, right now, nobody actually needs to shoot that much stuff into orbit. A few communications and military satellites here and there. Maybe supply a space station every now and then. You can pile this stuff up and then maybe launch one BFR a year. Although that doesn't make sense of course because you need different orbits for everything.
Either way, I very much doubt that BFR can be economical like this.
For BFR, I really think Moon or Mars colonization or asteroid mining needs to materialize with some heavy investment in it. Maybe all of them. Otherwise those rockets will get build and just end up standing around forever while the Falcons will keep doing the actual work.
>It's more effective per kilo. Not in total.
According to this year's IAC presentation, you're wrong. Launching a BFR is supposed to cost less than launching a Falcon 1, which was SpaceX's first rocket and could get about a ton into orbit.
>awknoledges that space stations exists
>but ignores the possibility that someone might want to send up space stations when it becomes dirt cheap to do so
Once they have the BFR's flying there is no reason for them to keep the Falcon family around, unless the US goverment is paying them to
Obviously SpaceX themselves would be taking advantage of any "extra" launch capacity they have
Fuck rockits use propulsion reddit.com
Everything changes when it doesn't cost billions to send a probe. It's a fucking game changer and if the scientific community is too autistic and financially corrupt to make use of it then let it all burn.
>there's no way to fill the payload capacity with our current budget
>the use steel and cheap materials to lower the cost at the cost of mass
>MUH EFFICIENCYY WRYYYYYYYYYYYY
The above thinking is highly prevalent but its so retarded I hope it won't actually cause harm.
I actually wonder if there might be room to start business with simple space telescopes and observation time...