grok_mctanys

What, is there a problem with the Earth's gravitational pull?

Well, yes, in that there's too much of it, meaning that the combination of it and the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation makes it really, really hard to launch large amounts of stuff into space.

However, there is a new vehicle that is about to undergo it's maiden test flight, the Falcon Heavy, with the launch planned for this Tuesday, Feb 6th, at 18:30 UTC (6:30pm London time). The launch should be livestreamed from SpaceX's webcast page, with the stream normally starting about 20 mins before the launch (so, 6:10pm London time) to give them time to explain what's going on.

If you know me, at some point in the last five years or so I may have cornered you in a social situation and gushed embarassingly about my excitement for this vehicle. (Sorry!) It was originally announced in 2011, with an intended maiden flight in 2013, and has been roughly "six months away" ever since. SpaceX even released an animation of the expected launch profile in January 2015, over three years ago now (although some details have since changed, e.g. the centre core will not return to the launch site (RTLS) but will land on the drone ship Of Course I Still Love You out in the Atlantic). So this has been a long wait for me, and many other SpaceX fanboys/girls.

I remember seeing an interview with SpaceX COO Gwynne Shotwell many months ago, where someone asked her what the hold up was with Falcon Heavy. She replied along the lines of "Well, it's just a case of strapping three Falcon 9 cores together right - how hard can that be? Turns out, it's really fricking hard." From elsewhere, it was pointed out that it's not really just strapping the cores together. You don't want much sideways stress or twisting on the inter-core attachments at all, so it's actually more like a case of making three cores fly in really close formation, at supersonic/hypersonic speeds, which is, as was pointed out, really fricking hard.

Anyhoo, one reason this is going to be massive (in more ways than one) is that Falcon Heavy will be able to lift more mass to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) than any other rocket currently in operation at 63,800kg, more than twice the 28,790kg of the Delta IV Heavy (the current leader) and the 24,400kg of the Space Shuttle. In fact, only 3 rockets have ever been able to lift more, with the USSR's N1 (95,000kg to LEO) and Energia (100,000kg to LEO) never getting out of their test program or even reaching orbit, and only the USA's Saturn V (140,000kg to LEO) which took people to the moon having actually lifted more.

As with the spaceship that the Falcon rockets are named after, she's got it where it counts, kid!

Moreover, Falcon Heavy launches look like they'll be priced to customers at around $100M, which is a good deal cheaper than the industry average for medium/heavy lift vehicles, which seems to typically be around the $150M+ mark, making their price/kg-to-orbit the lowest by a long, long way. This should really start to help opening up access to space for more and more ventures, which might not have been economically feasible before.

Anyway, there are a bunch of interesting details about this launch.

First, the payload. On December 2nd 2017, Elon Musk tweeted "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.". There were a few conflicting reports for a while about whether or not this was a joke, but then on Dec 22nd he posted to Instagram A Red Car for a Red Planet showing his Tesla mounted on a launch adapter surrounded by a payload fairing. The comedy payload is not a first for SpaceX, as on Dec 8th 2008 the first flight of their Dragon spacecraft on the second flight of their Falcon 9 rocket, had a wheel of cheese onboard.

One thing to note about the "Mars orbit" is that the Tesla won't actually be going to Mars. It will be put in a heliocentric (sun-centric) orbit that will go as far out as the orbit of Mars, but Mars will be at a different point on its orbit when the Tesla gets there. This is intentional, as payloads that actually go to Mars have to be built in clean rooms in accordance with international (interplanetary?) Planetary Protection laws, to prevent biological contamination of their destination with earth-originated bacteria. Which Elon's Tesla was not.

Second, while the centre core of the Heavy is brand new, the two side-cores are "flight-proven" in SpaceX parlance, with one previously being flown on May 27 2016 to launch the Thaicom 8 satellite, and the other on July 18 2016 for the 8th Commercial Resupply Services mission (CRS-8) to the International Space Station.

Third, Falcon Heavy has already been out to the launch pad a couple of times already. It was first rolled out to the pad and lifted vertical on Dec 28th, with SpaceX posting some photos and some drone footage of it a few days later. Then on Jan 24th it underwent its static fire test (check out the shock waves in the exhaust!), about which Elon Musk said "Falcon Heavy hold-down firing this morning was good. Generated quite a thunderhead of steam. Launching in a week or so.". That was followed on Jan 27th by the announcement "Aiming for first flight of Falcon Heavy on Feb 6 from Apollo launchpad 39A at Cape Kennedy. Easy viewing from the public causeway.".

And that's where things are now.

Edit: A few hours I posted this, Musk confirmed the launch schedule by tweeting "Falcon Heavy remains go for launch at 1:30pm on Tuesday" (that's 1:30pm Florida time, still 6:30pm London time) and posted a few update pics of the payload on instagram.

Edit 2: SpaceX have released an updated Falcon Heavy Animation.

If you'd like any more information on the Falcon Heavy in easily-digestible YouTube format, then The Everyday Astronaut (Tim Dodd) made some videos about Why Falcon Heavy was delayed 5 years and Static Fires - What you need to know, and TMRO dedicated the main segment of their Orbit 11.04 show to it, featuring regulars Jared and Space Mike, and guest Tim Dodd. They'll also answer comments from the 11.04 show in the relevant segment of their 11.05 show, but I've not seen that myself yet, so can't vouch for it.

Fingers crossed for Tuesday!

Edit 3: Woohoo!

There are a couple of interesting New Space things happening over the next few days.

First, it looks like Blue Origin are planning a new launch. There was a recent tweet where the news was attributed to "a source" (discussion), and a few days ago they filed a NOTAM (Notice to Airmen) (discussion) closing a 17 nautical mile radius (63km diameter) circle of airspace in Texas from 14:30 to 21:30 UTC (2:30pm to 9:30pm London time) between Mon Dec 11th and Thu Dec 14th, for launching and recovering rockets. There don't appear to be any more details than that, and Blue Origin are generally pretty cagy, but the rocket in question is likely to be the 3rd New Shepard sub-orbital booster and spacecraft on their maiden flights and landings. (And maybe one or even two subsequent flights and landings if they've got the turnaround time low enough - after all the airspace will be closed for 4 days.)

It's possible, but unlikely in my opinion, that they might stream any launches and landings. More likely is that they'll film it all and, if successful, edit together something nice and post it to their YouTube channel a few days later.

Second, SpaceX are planning to launch their 13th commercial resupply service mission (CRS-13) to the International Space Station (ISS) on Tue Dec 12th at 16:46 UTC (4:46pm London time) Update: Wed Dec 13th at 16:23 UTC (4:23pm London time) Update: Fri Dec 15th at 15:23 UTC (3:23pm London time) (discussion). This will be the second flight of their 35th(?) Falcon 9 first stage, and the second flight of their 9th(?) Dragon spacecraft.

They also plan to re-land the first stage booster back at the launch site. This should occur approximately 8-10 minutes after launch, and, unlike droneship landings, should have excellent video coverage all the way down. (The video coverage of droneship landings typically cuts out a few seconds before landing, because the broadcast dish on the droneship - which is also responsible for relaying video from the descending first stage itself - is unable to maintain the stability that is needed, when the ship is being buffeted from a rocket firing directly at it!)

SpaceX typically livestream all their launches and first-stage landings whenever possible. The livestream normally starts about 20 minutes before the launch (so, 3:00pm-ish London time) and has a presenter run through any interesting details about the mission, including what's in the cargo going up to the ISS - like treats for the astronauts or scientific equipment. The livestream should be available on their website or their youtube channel.