The Falcon Heavy Is Going To Launch Soon
Right now in the space industry, we are watching many different companies make progress on new launch vehicles meant to change how we access space. You also have SpaceX who is not only consistently launching Falcon 9 but also working on Starship. Not to mention the return of the Falcon Heavy which is expected to happen only months from now.
Specifically, the first Falcon Heavy launch in a long time is set to happen in the middle of August. It has been years since the rocket launched despite its mostly successful initial missions. Now in 2022, it not only has its first launch in a while but even more scheduled soon after. This will increase SpaceX’s launches quite a bit and open up more opportunities for satellites and more.
There are a few reasons why the Falcon Heavy has been inactive for this many years since its first flights. These also play into the future of SpaceX and what the company is aiming for as they work on Starship and more. Here I will go more in-depth into the launch schedule of Falcon Heavy, what to expect in the coming months, and why it has been such a long time since the last launch.
Falcon Heavy Schedule
Taking a look at the Falcon Heavy, the launch vehicle has had a very interesting lifetime and timeline up to this point. The first launch was in February of 2018. In this demonstration flight, a Tesla Roadster was sent to a trans-Mars injection heliocentric orbit. While both of the side boosters landed successfully, the center booster struck the ocean and was destroyed after two of its engines failed to relight during the landing burn, damaging two of the drone ship’s engines. Despite the loss of one of the three boosters, this mission was considered a huge success and shocked a lot within the industry thanks to the fascinating dual booster landing. The next launch came just over a year later in April of 2019. This mission consisted of a heavy communications satellite purchased by the Arab League. For the first time, all three boosters landed successfully, however, the center core subsequently fell over and was lost during transport due to heavy seas. After the mission, the two side-boosters were reused on the STP-2 launch. Finally, only a few months later in June of 2019, the Falcon Heavy lifted off once again. The mission supported the U.S. Air Force National Security Space Launch certification process for the Falcon Heavy. The original contract price was $165 million, which was later reduced, in big part due to the military’s agreement to fly the mission with reused side boosters. Secondary payloads included orbiters: LightSail 2, GPIM, OTB (hosting the Deep Space Atomic Clock,) six COSMIC-2 (FORMOSAT-7), Oculus-ASR, Prox-1, and ISAT. Successfully reused the boosters from the second Falcon Heavy flight. Following the pattern of previous missions, the center core booster failed to land successfully and was destroyed upon impact in the Atlantic Ocean.
This brings us to today and the future schedule of the Falcon Heavy. As of right now, the heavy-lift launch vehicle has a mission scheduled only a few months away on August 15th. Falcon Heavy was originally slated to launch the Viasat-2 satellite, but due to delays an Ariane 5 launch vehicle was used instead. Viasat maintained the launch option and will launch its next Ka-band satellite, which will serve either of the Asia-Pacific (APAC), Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) or Americas regions, using Falcon Heavy. The upper stage of Falcon Heavy will deploy the satellite into a near-geosynchronous orbit that will include a coasting stage several hours long between burns. Arcturus was added as an independent secondary payload in late September 2021. This launch will be the first time the Falcon Heavy has lifted off in years. In addition, it also marks the start of more frequent missions. Specifically, just over a month later On September 20th, the Falcon Heavy has another launch scheduled. This time, Falcon Heavy will launch the 2.6 t (5,700 lb) Psyche orbiter mission into a heliocentric orbit aiming a Mars-gravity assist. From there, the Psyche spacecraft will visit the Psyche asteroid in the main asteroid belt. The mission will carry a secondary payload: Janus aimed to study small, binary, near-Earth asteroids. Not to mention around 10 other missions that are planned to happen with the Falcon Heavy within the next two years. While it has been a long time since we watched this heavy-lift rocket take off, it is expected to change not long from now.
SpaceX & Falcon Heavy
Now that we know more about the Falcon Heavy’s schedule and when we should expect to see it launch again, we can take a closer look at the rocket itself and some of the reasons it has been so long since it took off. One of the biggest reasons has to do with improvements made to the Falcon 9. Specifically, some of the heavier satellites flown to GTO, such as Intelsat 35e and Inmarsat-5 F4, ended up being launched before the debut of Falcon Heavy. SpaceX anticipated the first commercial Falcon Heavy launch would be three to six months after a successful maiden flight, but due to delays the first commercial payload, Arabsat-6A was successfully launched on 11 April 2019, a year and two months after the first flight. SpaceX hopes to have 10 launches every year from 2021 on. The Falcon 9 turned out to be an extremely powerful and reliable launch vehicle and could take some of the planned missions for the Heavy and launch them a lot cheaper. This combined with the smaller amount of missions within this market and we have not seen the Falcon Heavy launch in a few years.
One of the reasons that Falcon Heavy is such an interesting rocket is its design and features. Falcon Heavy is the most powerful operational rocket in the world by a factor of two. With the ability to lift into orbit nearly 64 metric tons (141,000 lb) Falcon Heavy can lift more than twice the payload of the next closest operational vehicle, the Delta IV Heavy. Falcon Heavy is composed of three Falcon 9 nine-engine cores whose 27 Merlin engines together generate more than 5 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, equal to approximately eighteen 747 aircraft. At the bottom, three cores make up the first stage of Falcon Heavy. The side cores, or boosters, are connected on the nosecone, the interstage, and on the octaweb. Shortly after liftoff, the center core engines are throttled down. After the side cores separate, the center core engines throttle back up to full thrust. SpaceX has pointed out in the past that when developing the Falcon Heavy, it was much harder to correctly create the three core first stage rather than just strapping two additional boosters on the side. Right above these three boosters is the interstage. The interstage is a composite structure that connects the center core on the first stage and second stages and holds the release and separation system. On this interstage the Falcon Heavy is equipped with 12 hypersonic grid fins, four on each booster, positioned at the base of the interstage or nosecone which orients by moving the center of pressure during reentry. Moving higher on the rocket, Falcon Heavy draws upon Falcon 9’s proven design, which minimizes stage separation events and maximizes reliability. The second-stage Merlin Vacuum Engine delivers the rocket’s payload to orbit after the main engines cut off and the first-stage cores separate. Merlin Vacuum features a larger exhaust section and a significantly larger expansion nozzle to maximize the engine’s efficiency in the vacuum of space. Its combustion chamber is regeneratively cooled, while the expansion nozzle is radiatively cooled. In addition, at the very top, made of a carbon composite material, the fairing protects satellites on their way to orbit. SpaceX is recovering fairing for reuse on future missions.
Falcon Heavy’s first stage incorporates 27 Merlin engines across three aluminum-lithium alloy rocket cores containing liquid oxygen and rocket-grade kerosene (RP-1) propellant. Falcon Heavy generates more than 5 million pounds of thrust at liftoff. Finally, the Falcon Heavy first stage is equipped with 12 landing legs (4 on each booster) made of state-of-the-art carbon fiber with aluminum honeycomb. All 12 landing legs are stowed along the side of each booster until just prior to landing. All of which combines to create a truly unique and fascinating launch vehicle. With more than 5 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, Falcon Heavy is the most capable rocket flying. By comparison, Falcon Heavy can lift the equivalent of a fully loaded 737 jetliner—complete with passengers, luggage, and fuel—to orbit. This helps put into perspective the size and power of a rocket like this.
Conclusion
It has been far too long since the Falcon Heavy has launched. Many of us over the past few years have been keeping track of the launch vehicle and wondering when it will lift off again. Thankfully, in only a few months the wait is expected to be over. Not to mention the fact that a large number of missions are scheduled soon after. We will have to wait and see how it progresses and the impact it has on the space industry.