Falcon Heavy Launch [video]
spacex.com
spacex.com
That's not the point.
But still, I can immediately budget it at that price, and if the price comes down 20% in negotiations that pays for everything else that's behind schedule and over budget
I think "no one pays that" has more to do with "every mission is actually a negotiated contract" than "the price is inflated".
https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2022/10/falcon-heavy-ussf-44...
Probably most SpaceX customers pay more. (Oh, you wanted it not tumbling?)
What's your payload? What size is it? Will it be a dedicated flight, or can we ride share with other customers?
So many questions just to do something silly like "launch something into outer fucking space". Also, nitpick, but is geosync orbit actually outer space?
"Deep space" is another definition, which commonly means beyond lunar altitude.
Other regions of space typically use a specific descriptor - interplanetary, trans-Jovian, trans-Neptune, interstellar, extra-galactic.
I guess this is probably on Earth, which makes me wonder how far up from Earth's moon do you have to go to be "in space"?
For an airless body, there's no real meaning to the definition, the surface is pretty much equivalent to space.
For the moon, there is no such altitude, so space comes right down to the surface.
Absolutely, which is exactly why it's so ridiculous that so many sales teams demand implied consent to receive their spam solely to get some kind of number for something far, far less.
(Although they note that the actual price may vary by configuration, so I guess it's not as "pure" of a list price compared to SpaceX).
The highest there is $442.2 million. I wonder if there are any list prices out there higher than that?
Interesting that a whole island costs the same amount or less than just one airplane.
I wonder what the unit price for a break-even 1lb saving would be. Is it worth spending $20,000 to shave off a pound with expensive materials?
Based on this forum thread [1] the marginal cost per pound to fuel efficienciy is about "0.0155 gallons per pound per 1,000 statute miles". Over a 737's life it may fly about 50 million miles [2]. Combining facts one and two results in a fuel consumption per marginal pound of 775 gallons. Current jet fuel prices are about $3.40 per gal [3].
[1] https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travelbuzz/712294-anyone-kno...
[2] https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/columnist/cox/2012/11/...
[3] https://www.iata.org/en/publications/economics/fuel-monitor/
Of course any change to the aircraft has many other downstream implications (ability to source parts for repairs, lifetime of the part, maintenance requirements), but it's cool to think that for an "all else the same" replacement that the bar is still so high.
With the falling costs of advanced materials I do wonder if next gen aircraft will be substantially different.
However, an airline's break even point is a portion of that (perhaps $1,000) because the fuel costs are spread out over the life of the craft and there is an opportunity cost to spending money on the more efficient plane.
Of that $1,000, the aircraft maker will only capture a portion of the value - the airline expects to do better than break even. The airplane manufacturer may be able to charge $500 more for the aircraft.
They might hope to make 2,000 aircraft for something big like a 787 (although that number varies a lot depending on the model). That's 2,000 units times $500 = $1 million.
With the bulk of that being the value of the four engines - an old airframe is pretty much just scrap metal.
[^1]: https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/boeing-777x-9-first-fligh...
Listed price, and even a phone number to call. Go ahead, make an offer ;)
https://www.climatedepot.com/2022/11/01/new-york-times-clima...
You climate change terrorists crack me up.
"Check out our deals on launching stuff into friggin' space."
I never thought I would live to see such a service marketed this way.
When the second stage separates there's a few cables that are flying around. Does anyone know what those are used for? Electrical connections between the stages maybe?
And there's also the SWAG: Scientific Wild Ass Guess, for when some thought went into it :)
The most common response, by far, is: "Is that real?"
It really is just that amazing. Even look at the YouTube comments. It's enough to make even the internet become a place of shared awe, wonder, and inspiration. Makes one wonder what the world would be like if we had media that focused more on things like this and less on things that divide and agitate people.
One landing could just be some person steering it. But two?
This seems like a massive over-generalization.
Imagine you see a herd of deer trotting along, and one goes down. A hole, or ditch, or maybe a predator? Now imagine two deer go down at nearly the same time. Different implications, or at least different probabilities to the possible implications.
I'll stand by my over-generalization for now, but I'm open to counter-examples.
The WTC twin towers were replaced by a single big tower. If someone blew that up we sure as fuck would get the clear message on that one.
What a silly statement.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loPxTnJc9Zk
I cannot wait for the Starship version...
I wanted to write something about that lack of center booster reuse on falcon heavy feeling irrationally worse than a single F9 launch in the non-reusable profile (for a slightly higher payload iirc), but then I discovered that the non-reusable F9 profile hasn't happened in quite a while. Nice! When they started with the reuse, I was expecting the full payload profile to be a far more regular occurrence. (even if in hindsight I see that none of my reasons for that expectation make any sense)
~The booster was going 12km/sec at MECO, which is more than escape velocity. What they're doing with the second boost, they're not telling anyone.~
This is a direct-to-GEO launch, and some of the payloads are public.
My understanding was that the intended orbit / mission profile means that they must fly the center core in expendable mode. Otherwise, the satellite wouldn't be able to reach the intended orbit with the intended amount of fuel for the mission's duration.
Since we really don't know why the Space Force wanted direct GEO we can't know for sure if refueling or a kick stage would have met requirements or not. Would it be good enough as long as the satellite to stay hidden inside the fairing during refueling?
When the time comes, I hope they choose to donate it to a museum, or if not, the funds are raised to buy it off them.
I've always been a fan of putting such things on pedestals outside of public buildings, VFWs, etc. A bit less feasible with full rockets, but the engines at least would be fairly easy to put in parks so kids can climb on them.
> About
> Gas Works Park has a play area with a large play barn, and big hill popular for flying kites. Special park features include a sundial, and a beautiful view of Seattle. Access to Lake Union is restricted at Gas Works Park, as the lake sediment contains hazardous substances.
Appear that that description omits the lede! But the park does seem singularly interesting per the Wiki article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_Works_Park
1. Expend side-boosters to save enough fuel in the core for the entry+landing burn.
2. Land side-boosters on drone ships instead of flying back to land.
First option is likely the least favorable one, since two side-boosters combined price may be higher than the single core. Even though the core itself is likely more expensive than a single side-booster, since it caries the load of the payload plus side-loads from both side-boosters. Second option may be complicated logistically due to a lack of drone-ships. Landing three (or even two) rockets in the ocean was never done before.
What surprised -me- was that all three boosters were brand new, rather than, say, expending a booster that's already flown half a dozen times or such.
Or because someone asked "how high" and got back "as high as you can go".
Using new boosters was probably a contract requirement, but even if it wasn't, the Falcon Heavy center core isn't interchangeable with regular Falcon 9 cores, as it has to be strengthened to handle the additional load the side boosters put on it.
For example, for a GTO insertion, an expended F9 can do 8.3t while a completely reusable FH can do 8t, but the expended F9 is going to be cheaper overall. Thus FH is only worth using when the payload is heavy enough to require at least the center core to be spent. This might be different for Lunar payloads though.
But I still believe you -- the infrequency of an FH launch probably increases the ancillary costs. I'd just like to see your source.
As for the price, the official numbers are $67m for a new F9 and $97m for a reusable FH (from their respective Wikipedia pages).
Additionally, my reasoning is (as you mention) related to cadence. FH flies very infrequently and requires more ground expenses to prepare, recover and then refurbish 3 boosters. Additionally there's the opportunity cost of keeping a center core on standby (as it's purpose built for FH [1]) and the opportunity cost of keeping the side boosters either on standby or converting them to F9s.
Elon has previously mentioned that with Falcon rockets the main costs per flight are the second stage (~$10m, expended), fairings (~$3-4m, reusable), refurbishment (~$1m) and fixed ground costs, which can be reduced by increasing cadence [2]. In the case of FH the second stage and fairing costs are the same, the refurb costs are tripled and due to much lower cadence the ground costs are higher. Meanwhile, F9 flies frequently, so it has lower ground costs per launch and the booster's cost can be more easily amortized via several flights before the expendable launch.
Additionally, [2] mentions that the marginal cost of building an F9 booster is ~$15m, so all the extra costs of FH only need to be greater than $15m to make it worth just using an expendable F9.
[1] https://spaceflightnow.com/2022/01/27/spacex-gives-converted...
[2] https://www.inverse.com/innovation/spacex-elon-musk-falcon-9...
But if it's a wash (as you say) between non-reusable F9 and 3x reusable FH I'd probably go for a single EOL core anyways, for the lower total count of failure modes alone. Even more so if launches in that weight class are sufficiently rare to be served from "organic" churn of reusable F9 launches (they clearly are).
In any case, my mention of surprise in the top level comment was not meant as "how wasteful, losers, boooh!", but as an statement of amazement, "have we/they really come that far that a part of me is unimpressed by two of three?", and on a meta level surprise about how a non-reuseable F9 feels less disappointing to me: a non-reuse F9 is a valid compromise to eke out the last bit of payload, whereas the FH raises an expectation of being better in every way that's then disappointed by "a third of a step back" in terms of reuse compared to what we now consider a regular F9 launch. We consider the reusable F9 regular, crazy!
Eric Berger also put out a pretty good piece talking about all of this yesterday: https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/10/the-worlds-most-powe...
And if the customer is paying SpaceX to take a heavy payload to a high velocity / orbit...well, they are paying for it. Today's launch was actually the third-most-performant (and -expensive) Falcon Heavy launch mode. #2 has both side boosters landing on barges (so the boosters don't need fuel for boost-back burns). #1 expends everything - just like all of SpaceX's competition does.
After the boosters stage the core will be throttled back up (if it hadn't been already).
Landing gear? Where we're going we won't need landing gear!
The tourists viewing the launch were scattered around the Cape, with the most popular spot being here: https://goo.gl/maps/ohaudmEggCLmr7gu8 Which is about 13 km from the landing site.
Has it ever been done so overtly before ?
One is pragmatic, the other aims to sow specific narratives in the mind of the viewers. The video is aimed at us, not at the Chinese
There are reasons behind it that I don't really understand, but each booster makes 2 distinct sonic booms as it comes in to land. With Falcon Heavy launches, it makes a total of 4 of them!
Possibly it should always be “BAbababang-baaaang…”, and the first three might be either indistinguishable or ones after the first are too weak, except it becomes noticeably apart on extremely long objects like F9?
1: https://www.nasa.gov/centers/armstrong/multimedia/imagegalle...
The things he is concerned about when he's "futzing about with content moderation" are deep enough in that chain that it's easy to lose connection, but are absolutely part of it.
Even Falcon 9 can put a 6.4t satellite onto GTO in expendable mode and Falcon Heavy can while recovering all 3 boosters, but direct insertion into GEO of 6.4t would probably be stretching the limits of Falcon Heavy if even doable at all.
This doesn't perfectly answer your question.
People living in areas that telco and cable refuse to serve are finally able to join civilization.
There's also the plan to pull CO2 from the atmosphere to create rocket fuel. https://labusinessjournal.com/manufacturing/aerospace/big-pl...
There's the Dragon 2, the only US human space vehicle in operation, as the Space Shuttle has been retired in 2011 due to expenses and safety issues. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Dragon_2
The long term effects of a more rapid Ukrainian victory (and a dramatic Russian defeat) are difficult to estimate.
If you mean the rockets, there's the perk of making it easier for smallsats to get rides, enabling all sorts of smaller research/Earth observation and making it easier to train the next generation of talent in the field.
If you mean things like Starlink, one thing coming in the next few years that should play a decent role in the world is the idea of cellular connectivity anywhere by direct satellite uplink. It would be extremely low bandwidth, basically text-only, but likely to still be a fairly big deal for monitoring remote environments and for search and rescue purposes.
Besides that, currently the payload is limited by the size of the fairing. SpaceX is working on the bigger fairing, but it is not available yet.
This isn't a random launch.
In some ways, I am down with this type of rivalry than wars. I want an intense space race between China and US.
Also: there are no people on board. If it blows up, it's "only" money that's lost.