![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/52475499566_8187e5557b_k.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
SpaceX usually recovers the side boosters from its Falcon Heavy rockets for reuse. But this won\u2019t be possible on at least two upcoming Falcon Heavy launches for NASA.<\/p>\n
Credit:
\n SpaceX<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
As of Monday, SpaceX\u2019s Falcon 9 rocket, which uses a single first-stage booster, has flown 68 times this year. Now SpaceX is falling into a rhythm with launching the larger Falcon Heavy, which combines three modified Falcon 9 boosters into a single rocket.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve come to really appreciate a lot of what they have brought to the industry, continuing to push the envelope in a number of different ways,\u201d Dunn said of SpaceX. \u201cI would hope that they would say something along the lines that they have appreciated the engagement, the analytical and engineering rigor that NASA brings to the equation. I know, on the analytical side, software reviews, some of the hardware issues we\u2019ve worked with them over the years, there have been a lot of times where we\u2019ve arrived at a mutual agreeable solution that both parties brought value to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, NASA engineers formally certified the Falcon Heavy rocket to launch the agency\u2019s most expensive robotic missions, according to Dunn. This level of certification is known as Category 3 in NASA parlance, requiring a minimum of three successful flights of a common launch vehicle configuration in addition to deep insight by NASA engineers into a rocket\u2019s design and a launch contractor\u2019s quality control processes. If a launch company eschewed this extensive government involvement, it would need to fly its launcher on 14 consecutive successful missions.<\/p>\n
You can read more about NASA\u2019s launch vehicle certification requirements in this procurement document.<\/p>\n
NASA previously certified ULA\u2019s Delta IV and Atlas V and SpaceX\u2019s Falcon 9 rockets at the Category 3 level. ULA\u2019s Vulcan and Blue Origin\u2019s New Glenn launchers will need to fly successfully at least three times before becoming eligible to launch NASA\u2019s most critical science payloads (the Space Force and ULA agreed on a plan to certify Vulcan for national security missions after two successful missions).<\/p>\n
,<\/p>\n
In this 2021 presentation, a manager in NASA\u2019s Launch Services Program suggested that, on average, the third successful launch of a common launch vehicle configuration is delayed nearly three years from a contractor\u2019s prediction a year ahead of the rocket\u2019s first flight. That\u2019s about where Blue Origin says it is right now with New Glenn, while ULA\u2019s Vulcan rocket appears significantly closer to its first flight.<\/p>\n
The bottom line is that NASA is likely several years away from certifying Vulcan or New Glenn to launch missions in the same class as Psyche or Europa Clipper.<\/p>\n
This leaves SpaceX as the only option to launch many of NASA\u2019s science missions. United Launch Alliance\u2019s Atlas V and Delta IV rockets are nearing retirement, with all of ULA\u2019s remaining inventory sold to other customers. With Vulcan still years away from NASA certification, ULA has temporarily stopped bidding on NASA launch service procurements.<\/p>\n
For nearly a decade, ULA was the sole launch provider for NASA\u2019s medium and large science missions, from the company\u2019s formation in 2006 until the launch of a NASA-sponsored oceanography satellite on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in 2016. This period without competition resulted in higher launch prices for NASA, which had to direct a higher percentage of each mission\u2019s budget toward buying a rocket instead of adding to a spacecraft\u2019s scientific capability.<\/p>\n
Rising prices evermore?<\/h2>\n
The arrival of the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets helped reverse the upward trend in NASA launch prices. In 2020, NASA awarded a $117 million launch contract to SpaceX for a Falcon Heavy launch of Psyche. Then, in 2021, NASA selected a Falcon Heavy rocket to launch Europa Clipper, a contract valued at $178 million. Later in 2021, NASA purchased a Falcon Heavy launch at $152 million to launch a large, new NOAA weather satellite.<\/p>\n
,<\/p>\n
For the Europa Clipper launch, SpaceX will need to dispose of all three Falcon Heavy boosters to give the spacecraft enough of a boost away from Earth. This is something for which SpaceX typically charges an additional fee.<\/p>\n The 27 Merlin engines on SpaceX\u2019s Falcon Heavy rocket as it completes preparations for launch of NASA\u2019s Psyche asteroid mission.<\/p>\n Credit: SpaceX\u2019s dominant position in the global launch market has concerned some industry officials and analysts, who worry a SpaceX launch failure might disrupt the business plans of a wide range of customers. Some officials also worry SpaceX might raise launch prices as it surveys the launch market and sees a lack of competition.<\/p>\n Commercial customers usually don\u2019t disclose how much they pay for launch services, but the monetary value of NASA\u2019s launch contracts is part of the public record. While we\u2019ve seen little change in how much SpaceX is charging NASA for Falcon 9 launch services, the NASA price for Falcon Heavy has gone up.<\/p>\n It\u2019s important to note that launch prices for NASA and military payloads run higher than SpaceX\u2019s base commercial price. Government satellites often require special handling, and NASA and the Space Force pay for bells and whistles like engineering insight, unique cleanliness specifications, and in some cases, schedule priority over other commercial missions.<\/p>\n Two of NASA\u2019s missions on Falcon Heavy come with especially stringent requirements. One of those is the launch of the first two elements of NASA\u2019s Gateway lunar outpost on a single Falcon Heavy rocket. These two modules, a power and propulsion element and a pressurized habitat for astronauts, are projected to weigh in at about 18 metric tons (nearly 40,000 pounds). That would make this spacecraft the heaviest payload SpaceX has ever launched.<\/p>\n SpaceX is developing an extended payload shroud to accommodate the large size of the Gateway modules, which won\u2019t fit into a standard SpaceX fairing. A test unit of the extended payload fairing is undergoing tests this year inside the world\u2019s largest vacuum chamber at a NASA facility in Ohio to ensure it\u2019s ready for the Gateway launch, now scheduled for the end of 2025.<\/p>\n ,<\/p>\n NASA\u2019s $332 million Falcon Heavy launch contract for the first two Gateway modules is more than double what SpaceX charged NASA for the launch of Psyche. But it covers more than the Falcon Heavy launch itself. It includes SpaceX\u2019s fee to dispose of the Falcon Heavy boosters and also pays for some of the development costs for the new fairing design. \u201cWe\u2019ve got a lot of engineering and analytical effort devoted to that extended fairing right now,\u201d Dunn said.<\/p>\n SpaceX\u2019s extended payload fairing undergoing tests at NASA\u2019s Neil Armstrong Test Facility in Ohio.<\/p>\n Credit: Last year, NASA announced a $255 million launch order for a Falcon Heavy mission to haul the agency\u2019s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope into space. This wide-view observatory is next in NASA\u2019s most exclusive family of space-based telescopes, following up on Hubble and Webb.<\/p>\n The price for the launch of the Roman telescope is also significantly higher than SpaceX\u2019s rate for Psyche and Europa Clipper. At the time of the contract award, a NASA spokesperson said the Roman telescope would launch inside SpaceX\u2019s standard payload fairing, not the extended shroud designed for the Gateway modules. However, Roman will require strict cleanliness protocols to ensure its sensitive optics remain unblemished during pre-launch preparations, provisions that would at least partially explain the higher launch price.<\/p>\n NASA and the Space Force will surely buy more Falcon Heavy launches from SpaceX. The military and the US government\u2019s spy satellite agency see the Falcon Heavy as a partial replacement\u2014alongside ULA\u2019s yet-to-debut Vulcan\u2014for the Delta IV Heavy rocket, which has lofted top-secret surveillance missions into orbit for the better part of two decades.<\/p>\n But traditional commercial satellite operators, the types of companies that regularly buy Falcon 9 launches, haven\u2019t been as gung-ho about Falcon Heavy. Three of the seven Falcon Heavy missions to date have carried large commercial communications satellites toward positions in geostationary orbit, a location favored by many conventional satellite operators working in the video and television broadcast markets.<\/p>\n ,<\/p>\n But there are no such missions currently in SpaceX\u2019s Falcon Heavy backlog. In fact, the London-based commercial communications satellite company Inmarsat had a contract option to launch one of its payloads on a Falcon Heavy rocket but decided instead to launch the spacecraft on a Falcon 9 earlier this year.<\/p>\n One reason commercial customers (outside of lunar landers) have not signed up for many Falcon Heavy launches appears to be that the Falcon 9 is just so damn good. SpaceX may be a victim of its own success here. With a predictable launch cadence and a fleet of reusable boosters on the shelf, the Falcon 9 flies multiple times per week and can take off from three different launch pads, while the triple-body Falcon Heavy is currently limited to one launch site.<\/p>\n \u201cI will always remember my first time actually seeing the Falcon 9 up close,\u201d Dunn said. \u201cIn my mind, I had thought Falcon 9 was going to be a nice, cute replacement for Delta II (a now-retired medium-lift rocket from ULA), until you see it, and you realize how large the rocket is. Then you put three of those cores side by side, and it\u2019s very impressive.\u201d<\/p>\n SpaceX has introduced upgraded versions of the Falcon 9 rocket and experimented with higher throttle settings to eke out more performance. The owners of commercial communications satellites have also been willing to load more fuel on their spacecraft to allow them to launch into a lower orbit on a cheaper Falcon 9, instead of deploying into a more optimized orbit on a more costly Falcon Heavy. The extra fuel on the satellite can overcome the difference with additional orbit-raising maneuvers, a process that can add several weeks or months to the time until the spacecraft begins operational service.<\/p>\n Eventually, SpaceX wants to retire the entire Falcon rocket family in favor of the even larger Starship rocket. But Starship is still a long way from achieving NASA certification.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You can consider this the start of NASA\u2019s Falcon Heavy era. The launch of the Psyche asteroid mission this week is the opening act among five launches the space agency has directly reserved on SpaceX\u2019s heavy-lift rocket over the next few years. These Falcon Heavy flights will cut across NASA\u2019s portfolio of robotic space missions, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45843,"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":[678,190],"class_list":["post-45840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-falcon-heavy","tag-nasa"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45840"}],"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=45840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/53222357916_daaa0f4356_k.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n SpaceX<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/fairing1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n NASA\/SpaceX<\/p>\n<\/figure>\nIf you want a Falcon Heavy, speak now<\/h2>\n