SpaceX Falcon Heavy

[bobbymike]

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/07/elon-musk-has-new-affordable-mars-plan-with-near-earth-revenue-generation.html

 

[Grey Havoc]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-19/musk-says-first-passengers-on-spacex-rockets-must-be-brave

 

[Grey Havoc]

https://science.slashdot.org/story/17/08/07/021207/spacex-releases-animation-of-planned-falcon-heavy-launch

 

[sferrin]

That video is several years old. I'm surprised it's not already in this thread.

 

[Michel Van]

you mean this 2015 video ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ca6x4QbpoM

it show old Mission profile
the November 2017 test flight will feature booster landings at Cape
but the core will land on Drone Ship, while Payload faring make recuperation test
Musk tweeted and interview talked about option landing second stage test
and use of a "Silly payload"

like first Dragon capsule carry a wheel of French Le Brouère cheese
A homage to "the Cheese Shop sketch" from Monty Python's Flying Circus.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWDdd5KKhts

 

[fredymac]

This is the newer Falcon Heavy video.

EDIT: Correction, this may be an amateur simulation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LATTDyjlBYQ

 

[Byeman]

This is the newer Falcon Heavy video.

EDIT: Correction, this may be an amateur simulation.

it is. That is the Atlas V pad SLC-41

 

[bobbymike]

http://www.wearethemighty.com/news/spacex-launching-a-third-top-secret-satellite

 

[observer144]

Seems FH first launch has moved to January.
https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/11/28/debut-of-spacexs-falcon-heavy-rocket-now-planned-in-january/

 

[sferrin]

Seems FH first launch has moved to January.
https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/11/28/debut-of-spacexs-falcon-heavy-rocket-now-planned-in-january/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl3euCXhpaQ

 

[merriman]

My personal savior: Eric Theodore Cartman.

Yes, he obviously is a SpaceX fan, expressing justifiable frustration at yet another FH set-back.

Patience, Eric ... patience.

David

 

[Dragon029]

Perhaps in order to make up for the delay, Elon Musk has just tweeted / announced:

Payload will be my midnight cherry Tesla Roadster playing Space Oddity. Destination is Mars orbit. Will be in deep space for a billion years or so if it doesn’t blow up on ascent.

Naturally a lot of people, including myself, weren't sure if this was a joke or not, but according to Joy Dunn, Company Lead of New Product Integration at SpaceX:

oh this is legit and of course there will be cameras!

 

[merriman]

A Tesla electric car sharing the same orbit with Mars? .... pure Musk.

Long after the artifacts of man have been scrubbed off this rock, that car will remain to one day puzzle out-of-system explorers.

I like it.

David

 

[sferrin]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MyfInT1y0c

 

[merriman]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MyfInT1y0c

I was thinking the same thing. At least back in the day, the cartoon guys had the foresight to provide a means of scrubbing the windscreen from ablating material during the speedy descent. Note to Falcon-9 camera guys.

So, what inspired Bigelow? Earth 2, maybe?

And what got under Jeff Bezos' saddle to push him to space?

I disengage here to not further hijack this thread ....

David

 

[TomS]

He's fessed up now -- it was all a joke.

 

[Dragon029]

Oh ye of little faith ;D:

https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/1/16726822/spacex-falcon-heavy-tesla-roadster-launch-elon-musk

But confirmation followed a bizarre exchange between The Verge and Musk. After Musk tweeted the plan, we asked him to confirm that it was real. Musk replied to us first by email, confirming that it was real. Then, after The Verge published a story about the plan, Musk sent us a response in a direct message on Twitter saying he “totally made it up.” We now know that response was false; a person familiar with the matter told The Verge Saturday evening that the payload is in fact real.

And a tweet from a Verge journalist:

So to recap: Musk told us last night it’s true he’s launching a Tesla to Mars. We published. Shortly after that, we got another message from him: “totally made it up.” We updated today. After that, he & another SpaceX official confirmed to other outlets that it is indeed true.

 

[TomS]

OK, so after much confusion, here's what they claim is happening. A Tesla Roadster is being launched on Falcon Heavy. It looks like they just plan to lob it into a heliocentric Hohmann-type transfer orbit between Earth and Mars orbit. With no orbital insertion burn at the Mars end, it's just going to loop around out there for millennia, or until Elon decides to mount an expedition to recover it and bring it to his new Mars habitat as his personal whip.

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

One gets the feeling it was going to be a joke, but then Elon changed his mind. Some SpaceX engineers are going to be burning the 2am oil (the midnight oil is already used up) to design whatever payload adapter they need for this and whatever software is needed to do the orbital insertion.

 

[sferrin]

Some SpaceX engineers are going to be burning the 2am oil (the midnight oil is already used up)

Which is why SpaceX is where they're at and ULA isn't. (Though, to be fair, ULA employees probably put in just as many hours.)

 

[Michel Van]

I had a sneaky suspicion they put a car in Payload bay and send it to ISS...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzZW4mXFLho

 

[Michel Van]

Elon Musk Twitted this on 01:57 - 20. Dez. 2017

 

[Dragon029]

The first photo of the Tesla Roadster v1 attached to the Falcon Heavy's payload mount:

 

[sferrin]

The first photo of the Tesla Roadster v1 attached to the Falcon Heavy's payload mount:

I'll bet the design team who figured out how to mount the car to the front end of the rocket never stopped laughing. ;D Imagine if he'd painted it up like the General Lee before launch (flag would have to move to the hood though). That'd have been God-level troll power.

 

[Flyaway]

Plenty of images of the Tesla Roadster in the fairing here.

https://www.space.com/39195-elon-musk-tesla-roadster-falcon-heaavy-photo.html

 

[sferrin]

The need to have the interior lit with cameras transmitting a view of the car on it's mount as it's being shot into space. ;D

 

[fredymac]

Grabbed this screen shot from Twitter.

To see video at twitter: https://twitter.com/hashtag/falconheavy

 

[fredymac]

Video showing Falcon Heavy being erected.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDyNK1tLWk4

 

[sferrin]

Question: do the attach supports reside on the core or the boosters? If the core, does anybody know if these can be swapped around, or is it, "once a core, always a core"?

 

[Michel Van]

Question: do the attach supports reside on the core or the boosters? If the core, does anybody know if these can be swapped around, or is it, "once a core, always a core"?

So far i know, the Supports are Part of Core Stage. Always the Core

 

[Mach42]

Question: do the attach supports reside on the core or the boosters? If the core, does anybody know if these can be swapped around, or is it, "once a core, always a core"?

The centre core must be reinforced to take the load of the boosters anyway so even if you could swap them, a core could be a core or a less mass-efficient booster but a booster could never be a core without extensive modification.

 

[blackstar]

The centre core must be reinforced to take the load of the boosters anyway so even if you could swap them, a core could be a core or a less mass-efficient booster but a booster could never be a core without extensive modification.

This was one of the things that SpaceX learned very early on with the FH. They thought they would have a lot more commonality of parts until they started designing it, and then they realized that it had less commonality within the vehicle (for instance, I doubt that they can swap left and right boosters because of where the fittings are located) as well as with the Falcon 9. It became much more of a custom vehicle. Which explains some of the delays.

 

[TomS]

This was one of the things that SpaceX learned very early on with the FH. They thought they would have a lot more commonality of parts until they started designing it, and then they realized that it had less commonality within the vehicle (for instance, I doubt that they can swap left and right boosters because of where the fittings are located) as well as with the Falcon 9. It became much more of a custom vehicle. Which explains some of the delays.

They were able to re-manufacture previously flown F9 boosters as the side boosters for FH, but I suspect that now that they've done that, the boosters are not interchangeable (and can't likely be reflown as basic F9s anymore).

 

[TomcatViP]

I might miss something but the booster are axisymetric, so if there was a modification to fit them to one side of the central core it should lead to a planar symmetry... Hence left and right are interchangeable [/malice]

 

[TomS]

Are they? I noticed that the right hand one (as seen in the assembly photos) has a massive cable race down one side. Is that duplicated on the opposite side of the other booster as well? It's hard to tell from the existing pictures.

 

[Hobbes]

The boosters have 2 raceways each: a large one on one side, and a much narrower one on the opposite side. As far as I can see, the 2 side boosters are identical, not mirrored.

 

[TomS]

The boosters have 2 raceways each: a large one on one side, and a much narrower one on the opposite side. As far as I can see, the 2 side boosters are identical, not mirrored.

Yeah, I just learned that poking around an old NasaSpaceflight Forum thread.

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=43025.40

 

[NeilChapman]

The centre core must be reinforced to take the load of the boosters anyway so even if you could swap them, a core could be a core or a less mass-efficient booster but a booster could never be a core without extensive modification.

This was one of the things that SpaceX learned very early on with the FH. They thought they would have a lot more commonality of parts until they started designing it, and then they realized that it had less commonality within the vehicle (for instance, I doubt that they can swap left and right boosters because of where the fittings are located) as well as with the Falcon 9. It became much more of a custom vehicle. Which explains some of the delays.

Another good reason for moving to the BFR design.

 

[blackstar]

Another good reason for moving to the BFR design.

Building a big rocket was hard. Building a much bigger rocket should be easier.

 

[sferrin]

Another good reason for moving to the BFR design.

Building a big rocket was hard. Building a much bigger rocket should be easier.

Bigger is not always more difficult.

 

[Dragon029]

So apparently if the static fire goes according to plan, we could see the Falcon Heavy launching in 2 weeks (on Jan 15th):

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2017/12/falcon-heavy-maiden-static-fire-test/

https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/7hjp03/falcon_heavy_demo_launch_campaign_thread/