SpaceX is working on a heavy lifter launch vehicle that they call the Falcon Heavy. The Falcon Heavy will be twice as powerful as the next biggest rocket in the world, the Delta IV Heavy and will on cost one third as much to launch. It will be able to lift about one hundred and twenty thousand pounds into orbit. Only the Saturn V rocket that carried men to the moon in 1973 could lift a larger payload. The Falcon Heavy was designed from the beginning to carry men into space.
The first stage of the Falcon Heavy is comprised of three Flacon 9 engine cores. Together these three engine cores contain twenty-seven Merlin engines which have a combined thrust of more than five million pounds. Just after liftoff, the center engine core reduces thrust. The two side engine-cores fall away and the center core throttles back to full thrust.
The second stage contains a single Merlin engine to deliver the payload to orbit following the cutoff of thrust from the first stage cores and the separation of the second stage. The second stage Merlin engine can be turned off and on multiple times which allows the delivery of payloads to different orbits including low earth orbit and geosynchronous orbit.
The payload for the Falcon Heavy will be either a composite flaring that will contain and protect cargo and/or satellites or the Dragon spacecraft.
Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX has announced that the first test flight of the Falcon Heavy will be in November of this year. However, he also said that that was an optimistic projection and there might be delays. Musk had said that he was hoping for a summer launch but in June stated that it would take several months for the Falcon Heavy cores to reach Cape Canaveral from the factory. Once the cores are at Cape Canaveral, they will need some preparation time.
Earlier this year, Musk said that he would like to try to recover the second stage after the launch by vertical landing. However, now Musk has dialed back expectations for this first test launch of the Falcon Heavy. Musk said at a recent conference that he was not sure that the Falcon Heavy would even reach orbit on this first mission.
The Falcon Heavy will be launched from NASA’s launch pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center. No exact date and time has been set yet. Musk said that such details would be announced in the coming months.
The arrival of such a powerful and cheap launch vehicle will mean a quantum leap in sending major payloads into orbit. It will provide the foundation for missions away from Earth to the Moon, Mars and asteroids. With such lift capacity, bigger and more sophisticated space stations far beyond the International Space Station become possible. The advent of the Falcon Heavy launch vehicle will herald a new age of space exploration and exploitation.
Artist’s concept of a Falcon Heavy on the launch pad:
