{"id":18652,"date":"2018-02-06T00:06:02","date_gmt":"2018-02-05T16:06:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/elon-musk-explains-why-spacexs-falcon-heavy-rocket-is-risky-and-revolutionary\/"},"modified":"2018-02-06T00:06:02","modified_gmt":"2018-02-05T16:06:02","slug":"elon-musk-explains-why-spacexs-falcon-heavy-rocket-is-risky-and-revolutionary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/elon-musk-explains-why-spacexs-falcon-heavy-rocket-is-risky-and-revolutionary\/","title":{"rendered":"Elon Musk explains why SpaceX\u2019s Falcon Heavy rocket is risky \u2013 and revolutionary"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_395249\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-395249\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-395249\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/180205-sep-630x382.jpg\" alt=\"Falcon Heavy separation\" width=\"630\" height=\"382\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/180205-sep-630x382.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/180205-sep-768x466.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/180205-sep-1260x765.jpg 1260w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/180205-sep.jpg 1315w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-395249\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Falcon Heavy rocket\u2019s side-booster separation procedure is one of the riskiest parts of the ascent. (SpaceX via YouTube)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. \u2014 Launching the Falcon Heavy rocket is arguably one of the riskiest operations that SpaceX has ever taken on, but billionaire CEO Elon Musk says he\u2019s made his peace with the risks.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNormally I feel super-stressed out the day before,\u201d he told reporters today, on the eve of Tuesday\u2019s first planned countdown for the massive, 230-foot-tall rocket. \u201cThis time I don\u2019t. That may be&nbsp;a bad sign, I\u2019m not sure. I feel quite giddy and happy, actually. \u2026 I\u2019m sure we\u2019ve done everything we could do to maximize the chance of success with this mission.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>If all goes well, SpaceX will demonstrate its ability to put hefty payloads into high Earth orbits, and potentially go well beyond Earth orbit. This time around, Musk is sending out a red Tesla Roadster with a dummy in the driver\u2019s seat&nbsp;\u2014 but the same rocket power could be applied to more serious payloads such as spy satellites.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/395066493&amp;color=%23ff5500&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false&amp;show_teaser=true&amp;visual=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"300\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>But all might not go well: Musk weighs the chances of complete success this first time around at about 50-50. During today\u2019s teleconference, he listed five risky moments he\u2019d be watching for during the flight.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>That 27-engine liftoff:<\/strong> The Falcon Heavy consists of three separate Falcon 9 rocket cores yoked together, and that means three sets of nine Merlin rocket engines have to work in concert. Musk said he worried about \u201cthe relative interaction of the three core boosters\u201d \u2014 and the chance that resonant forces might knock them together with catastrophic results. \u201cI would consider it a win if it just clears the pad and doesn\u2019t blow the pad to smithereens,\u201d he said.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Going through Max-Q:<\/strong>&nbsp;A little more than a minute after launch, the rocket goes through maximum aerodynamic pressure, or Max-Q&nbsp;\u2014 when the forces acting on the rocket are the greatest. \u201cThat\u2019s possibly where it could fail as well,\u201d Musk said.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Watch out for falling ice:<\/strong>&nbsp;The rocket\u2019s three-part structure also raises the risk that ice knocked loose from the cryogenically chilled upper stage could strike the tops of the two side cores. \u201cThat would be like coming like a cannonball through the nose cone,\u201d Musk said.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Booster separation:<\/strong> Musk noted that the three-core booster separation system has been tested extensively on the ground, but never in flight. Separation should be complete a little more than three minutes after launch. \u201cOnce the second stage separates from the center booster, we are in much more known territory,\u201d he said.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Coasting through the radiation belt:<\/strong> The trajectory for this test flight is unusual in that it calls for a six-hour coast phase through the Van Allen radiation belt that encircles Earth. \u201cIt\u2019s actually a radiation environment significantly worse than deep space,\u201d Musk said. There\u2019s a chance that the upper stage\u2019s systems might not survive for the crucial engine burn that sends the Tesla out of Earth orbit. \u201cIt\u2019s going to get whacked pretty hard,\u201d Musk said.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>On the plus side, Falcon Heavy\u2019s success could revolutionize the heavy-lift launch market as much as SpaceX\u2019s Falcon 9 has revolutionized more down-to-earth space missions.<\/p>\n<p>The current base list price for a Falcon Heavy launch is $90 million, compared with $62 million for the Falcon 9. But Musk pointed out that if all three rocket cores can be recovered, the cost of flying the Falcon Heavy may end up being not that much more than the Falcon 9.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf we are successful in that, then it\u2019s \u2018Game Over\u2019 for all other heavy-lift rockets,\u201d Musk said. \u201cIt would be like trying to sell an aircraft where one aircraft company had reusable aircraft, and all the other aircraft companies had aircraft that were single-use, and you parachuted out at your destination and the plane would crash-land randomly somewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Based on SpaceX\u2019s production rate, Musk said Falcon Heavy rockets could be launched every three to six months. \u201cWhatever the demand is, we\u2019ll be able to meet it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>But Musk has come around to see the Falcon Heavy primarily as a transitional step to an even more powerful launch vehicle, known as the BFR (which stands for Big Falcon Rocket or Big F***ing Rocket, depending on how nasty you want to get).<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"SpaceX Interplanetary Transport System\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/0qo78R_yYFA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf we wanted to, we could actually add more two more side boosters and make it \u2018Falcon Super-Heavy,\u2019 and probably get thrust upwards of maybe 9 million pounds of thrust \u2026 but we think that the new BFR architecture is a better way to go,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Musk said the BFR is being designed with a reusable first-stage booster plus a reusable upper-stage spaceship, making it more economical than the Falcon Heavy. What\u2019s more, the turnaround time for launches could be measured in terms of hours rather than days.<\/p>\n<p>For that reason, SpaceX is putting an increasing amount of effort into the BFR.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur focus is on the ship,\u201d Musk said, \u201cand we expect to do, hopefully, short flights with the ship next year. That\u2019s aspirational.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Because of the timeline and the advantages of the BFR architecture, Musk is no longer expecting to send passengers on a trip around the moon using a Falcon Heavy. \u201cThat was our plan until last year, and then we thought, \u2018Well, maybe we can make this BFR development go faster than we thought,&#8217;\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>If Musk\u2019s vision becomes a reality as quickly as he hopes it does&nbsp;\u2014 which is always an iffy proposition&nbsp;\u2014 the next humans to get an up-close look at Musk\u2019s Tesla Roadster in orbit may well be passengers following its tracks to Mars, but on a BFR spaceship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Falcon Heavy rocket\u2019s side-booster separation procedure is one of the riskiest parts of the ascent. (SpaceX via YouTube) CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. \u2014 Launching the Falcon Heavy rocket is arguably one of the riskiest operations that SpaceX has ever taken on, but billionaire CEO Elon Musk says he\u2019s made his peace with the risks. \u201cNormally [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2873,1045,678,316],"class_list":["post-18652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-bfr","tag-elon-musk","tag-falcon-heavy","tag-spacex"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18652"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18652\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}