It's almost here lads

Falcon Heavy

The size of that thing compared to the fairing is what gets me.

It's when you realize the real size of some of the shit they put into orbit.

The Falcon 9 can bring 22,800kg to low earth orbit, or 8,300kg to geostationary orbit.

Yet the heaviest payload they have ever launched have been the Iridium payloads (9,600kg to LEO) and the Intelsat payload (6,700kg to GTO)

Why?
Are the advertised figures fake news?

>It's when you realize the real size of some of the shit they put into orbit.

Some things have comparison photos you can find online.

>Why?

I'd guess it's because the volume restriction has stopped them from putting in more stuff before the weight restriction does.

>fake news
>pepe

Neck yourself.

It's probably more about payload density.
Like, in order to launch that 22,800kg it would need to be a single payload densely packed into the shroud capacity.
Not many people are making that size satellite, the big ones more often go to GEO which is why their GTO highest is much closer to their GTO capacity.

Nice quints.

Also, the mechanisms needed to launch multiple payloads takes up extra space.

Sorry for the image, I'll post a better one now.

Okay I have another question,
at the Iridium launch yesterday, when the second stage cuts off and before the satellites begin deploying one by one, there's still some fuel being expelled violently off the sides of the engine.

You can see it at 1:07:50 here
youtube.com/watch?v=wtdjCwo6d3Q
and when the camera comes back it's being shot out violently and there seem to be ice crystals forming?

Whats that?

Without looking at the video, it sounds like attitude jets/engines firing to change its orientation.

There are two of these exhausts at opposite sides

Maybe they're just throwing out all the excess fuel

Anything that leaves the rocket will change its attitude. If you see something spewing out, it means that is intended. There should not be "excess" fuel.

There are two plumes, one on each side
Don't they cancel each other out?
There's supposed to be an exhaust for the turbopump but I thought it's meant to face downwards

yes its fake
they can only structurally mount like 10-12 tons
its just a stat so you can compare the power of rockets, not something the F9 can actually do

please stop shilling
it is rude

>tfw never saw a shuttle launch and never will
it might have been an impractical wasteful design but god damnit, it was so iconic

SpaceX's reusability strategy is entirely based on rapid flight rate servicing massive payload demand from the market and government which is not realistic at all.

The question is such; How much actual yearly demand there is for Saturn V type launch vehicles?
Judging by existing missions and more importantly budgets, it is less than one.

Space is different from the airline industry, and SpaceX will realize this after observing the interest toward their upcoming Falcon Heavy. And that is a rocket that even if quite oversized for the market it is servicing, its certainly not as ridiculous as the proposed "Mars Rocket" or "ITS".

A more practical look towards reusability is the correct path, and ULA is taking it.

they will never launch a payload over 13 tons
Not with the FH, not with the F9
Thats their structural limit

>they can only structurally mount like 10-12 tons
[citation needed]

Maybe they're clearing the plumbing of left-over fuel.

we got to see them every time one launched back in the 1980s. I got to see the Challenger blow up on live TV with my bros.

i mean, like, see one in person. saw them plenty on tv

This is the thing though, Falcon Heavy is a modified Falcon 9.
It'll be easier for them to do it because when there's demand for the Falcon Heavy they can put one together but otherwise use Falcon 9s.

Also, also. With Falcon Heavy's lift capacity they could potentially put several of the contracts they have, or future contracts, together into a single launch.
That has considerable benefits. One Falcon Heavy (should be) cheaper than launching three Falcon 9s, so if three customers can get together into a Falcon Heavy launch then there's money to be saved there.

Can't wait for awesome fireworks sponsored by The Musk.

I kinda want it to explode, but I also kinda want the silly car to get into space.

>that point at 2sec with the main engines going full power being held back by the launch platform

>milking that sweet taxpayer tit
muh dikk

It has the same upper stage, which means it won't be putting larger payloads into LEO, unless someone pays hundreds of millions to develop an upper stage that can handle 20-30 tons
There's a reason they launch 10 tons at a time to LEO

>There's a reason they launch 10 tons at a time to LEO
Because they want to land the thing. The reusable payload limit to LEO is just under 10 tonnes. How many expendable LEO missions have SpaceX done?

SpacX didn't produce the most mass efficient rocket on the planet by over building it

Do you want to go through the other rockets and compare their maximum payload carried to LEO vs their LEO capacity?

Looking at the Saturn V the heaviest thing it took to LEO was Skylab, and that was 77 tonnes of its 140 ton LEO capability.

Now I am going to grant you that they probably can't put the maximum capacity onto the Falcon 9 or Heavy because it physically wouldn't fit inside the fairing but that LEO value isn't a lie, it's there to give a comparison between performance of the rockets.

The payload attach fitting (PAF) converts the diameter of the launch vehicle to the standard 1575-mm (62.01in.) bolted interface(Figure 3-1). SpaceX uses one of two PAFs on the launch vehicle,based on payload mass. The light PAF can accommodate payloads weighing up to 3,453 kg (7,612lb), while the heavy PAF can accommodate up to 10,886 kg (24,000 lb).

>27 engines
Wasn't the "use a ton of small engines instead of a few giant ones" approach one of the big problems with the soviet moon rocket since it requires a complex arrangement of fuel lines? What is SpaceX doing to make this thing work?

Well, SpaceX has 9 working in a Falcon 9 already, so they just take three working Falcon 9s and make a Falcon Heavy.

Now the N1, that had something like 42 engines in a single stage and they tried to launch it all up without testing first.

I am sure you can see the differences. Not to say that the Falcon Heavy is sure to launch perfectly first try but they have a much better chance than the N1 did.

That was soviet engineering fueled by soviet politics running on soviet economy.

I remember reading a book about both Korolev and von Braun's life. Fucking Korolev had it rough, made it even sadder that the N1 never came to much

The N1 was a very poorly engineered death trap constructed by inexperienced engineers with immature technology, and was rushed into production by panicking soviet politicians. The N1's fatal flaw was it's engines, the Russians decided instead of using the reliable and flight-tested RD-107 engine that was used by the Soyuz rockets, that they would use a brand new engine that had never been tested, the NK-15 which unsurprisingly didn't end well. Compare this to the Merlin 1D that the Falcon Heavy uses, which is arguably the best American rocket engine developed since the F1, its a robust, well-tested and mature design that has been fired 1000's of times. It's also important to acknowledge that the FH does not possess the plumbing problems of the N1 which had to fit 30 engines into one core, while the FH only fits 9 into each core making the FH a much less complicated beast to manage. All in all, the Falcon Heavy's propulsion isn't a problem it should perform with the same reliability as the Falcon 9 has done all this year; on the otherhand, the main problem the FH possesses is a structural one as the massive force and vibrations of the 27 engines on the main core is what's most likely to cause it to fail.

>>the main problem the FH possesses is a structural one as the massive force and vibrations of the 27 engines on the main core is what's most likely to cause it to fail.
How good do you think the computer simulations are getting. Do you think we are getting closer to the point of only needing to live test something once?

we're probably at that point now, however doing only one test is really fucking ballsy and might come to bite you in the ass
best to be EXTRA sure with things that can very easily explode

it's not being held back by the platform but by it's own weight. The shuttle's engines don't have enough thrust to get it off the ground. It only takes off once the solid rocket boosters ignite.

Has a date been set yet? Somewhere in January right?

I guess even if your simulations are 100% accurate you still can get fucked by a manufacturing defect you didnt catch.

Yes sometime in January. They are probably limited by the logistics + weather reports.

The big problem with doing simulations for something you never tested is that some point you neglected before may come up as a problem. And physics simulations tend to need to neglect a lot of things to just run. It may always happens something strange on first test

It's likely to be put on the pad in the first few days of January and will undergo multiple static fires for a period of several weeks before being cleared for launch around January 15. That's just my prediction btw but I think it's accurate to say that it will fly this January.

I'm still not sure if they're just putting into a trajectory that will approach Mars and then flyby or if they will actually reactivate the upper stage to capture it into Mars orbit when they get there

>How much actual yearly demand there is for Saturn V type launch vehicles
If five years from now, SpaceX will orbit a 150 ton payload for $60 million and ULA will orbit a 25 ton payload for $250 million there's no convincing reason for ULA to be in business

elon shills fuck off this board
Sage

I can't even imagine orbiter/flyby style 150ton probe. It will probably cost trillions not even including the launch.

Better quality control. You know, not leaving screws and bolts in the engine pipes.

Can throw up a bunch of these, though

>there's no convincing reason for ULA to be in business

sure there is, to be squeezed dry by lockmart and boeing

The Falcon Heavy, made up of 3 Falcon 9s, being named for their 9 engines.
The Heavy has 27 engines, and they're going to try to land and reuse all 3 boosters. It's a huge feat but a game changer because it's one of the most powerful rockets since the Saturn V and could get payloads to Mars.

Meta-question here:
I'm always curious about a comment like this (not saying it's wrong - i have no idea). I assume that the company in question has done shitloads of research to answer as well as possible the issues you mention: current demand, future growth, etc.
So I'm curious how you explain the behaviour of the people running a multi-billion dollar enterprise like this. Do they know they're wrong, and just don't care because they're getting funding anyway? What about the investors? Haven't they done their due dilligence?

vonB definitely lucked out getting captured by the Amis. even got a presidential medal or some shit later on, despite being literally responsible for the rockets that killed thousands in britain kek

Herr Braun and others purposely ran to the allies.

>implying BFR needs to fill up its launch capacity per flight to be profitable
>implying any rocket today even comes close to theoretical maximum payload when launching

ISHYGDDT

You're not wrong but you're missing the point. Developing a new PAF that could handle anything up to Falcon Heavy's maximum theoretical payload mass would be easy. However, it would be a heavier structure than the stage currently uses, and right now there are virtually no payloads massing over 10 tons anyway. Therefore, SpaceX has not decided to waste time and engineering effort in developing the stronger PAF yet,simply because they have no reason to.

What Falcon Heavy lets them do is make every mission they fly not require booster expenditure. If it's too heavy to fly on Falcon 9 in reusable mode, they'll launch it with Heavy in reusable mode. If someone wants to make a very heavy payload, SpaceX can either not bid on it, or they can build a new and much stronger PAF to be used on those super heavy payload launches.

They couldn't test fire the engines due to the use of an ablative nozzle. Instead they built batches of engines and fired one from each batch.

The rocket couldn't be transported to the launch site in one piece, so each stage had to be disassembled in order to pack the components onto a train and move them to the launch complex where they were reassembled. This meant the risk of foreign object debris and so forth was extremely high.

The Soviets were also performing testing under a 'launch it, see what broke, fix it, launch it again' philosophy. Each time they launched they got closer and closer to success, in fact only the first two failures really had much to do with the number of engines. The third launch failed because the vehicle developed a roll, and the final launch failed because when the engines shut down it caused a water hammer effect which burst fuel lines on all stages.

By comparison, the only really new things about Falcon Heavy are going to be the vibration modes from the three cores burning side by side, and the additional forces on the center core. If they're done their modelling right and reinforced the center core correctly the rocket should be fine.

Are you sure they don't have another PAF available for loads above 10 tonnes?
This is what Iridium looks like inside their fairing and it is right on the 9600kg limit for recovering the first stage but there's plenty of room left inside.
Could probably fit another five in there.

>You're not wrong but you're missing the point.
My point was to address these people that think the Falcon Heavy will be sending up 40+ ton space station modules some time soon. It's not a trivial thing for them to start making changes to their second stage, nor is that on the schedule at all.

At current launch rates and reuse costs, reusing 3 boosters or expending an old one will probably favor the expending.
At least until all the pre Block 5 boosters are used up.

Braun wrote a novel about a mission to Mars decades ago, the race responsible for it were called Elon.

>The shuttle's engines don't have enough thrust to get it off the ground
True, but the solid rocket boosters are still affixed to the launch platform through the hold-down posts.
You can see in the webm the shuttle leaning forward slightly after engine ignition. Without the bolts holding it down, the whole thing would probably tip over.

>Could probably fit another five in there.

Probably not. The payload envelope is diagonal once the payload fairing becomes conical. The fairing is actually one of the limiting factors for SpaceX; payloads aren't dense enough for a relatively small payload fairing on a rocket as powerful as Falcon heavy. Payload Fairings themselves cost approximately 3 million dollars a half, and they're struggling to recover them too (that's a lot of money to just throw away).

as far as I understand its less the cost more that they are carbon composite and not fast to produce