{"id":85079,"date":"2011-04-05T23:29:32","date_gmt":"2011-04-05T15:29:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/musk-sets-high-expectations-for-spacexs-falcon-heavy-launch-vehicle\/"},"modified":"2011-04-05T23:29:32","modified_gmt":"2011-04-05T15:29:32","slug":"musk-sets-high-expectations-for-spacexs-falcon-heavy-launch-vehicle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/musk-sets-high-expectations-for-spacexs-falcon-heavy-launch-vehicle\/","title":{"rendered":"Musk Sets High Expectations for SpaceX\u2019s Falcon Heavy Launch Vehicle"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[04-05-11] <strong>SpaceX<\/strong> unveiled its Falcon Heavy rocket and expects the first demonstration launch of the vehicle to take place at Vandenberg Air Force, Calif., as early as 2013, CEO and CTO Elon Musk announced April 5 at the National Press Club in Washington D.C.<br \/>\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The Merlin engine-powered Falcon Heavy rocket had been in development for years and has been designed to carry more than 58 tons (117,000 pounds) of cargo into low-Earth orbit, surpassed only by NASA\u2019s Saturn 5 rocket. \u201cThis is a rocket of truly huge scale,\u201d Musk said of the Falcon Heavy.<br \/>\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; SpaceX estimates that the average cost of a mission would be between $80 million to $125 million. The vehicle initially would be offered as an alternative to <strong>Lockheed Martin<\/strong>\u2019s Atlas 5 and <strong>Boeing<\/strong>\u2019s Delta 4 vehicles developed under the U.S. military\u2019s Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program. The two vehicles conduct launches for the U.S. government under the United Launch Alliance joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing.<br \/>\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; \u201cA Falcon heavy launch will cost $1,000 per pound to orbit, which is one-third of the cost of United Launch Alliance\u2019s Delta 4 Heavy and can carry twice as much cargo and provide twice as much lifting, as the Delta 4 is only capable of carrying 25 tons,\u201d Musk said. \u201c\u2026 This provides six times more cost efficiency over the Delta 4 for satellite operators.\u201d <br \/>\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; While SpaceX initially will offer the Falcon Heavy for satellite launches, the vehicle was designed to meet and exceed <strong>NASA<\/strong> human safety standards. \u201cFalcon 9 can only go to the International Space Station in [low-Earth orbit]. Falcon Heavy can go well beyond that. Our ultimate mission is to go to the moon and even Mars. We hope the rocket\u2019s capacity will re-open spaceflight horizons that have faded over the decades,\u201d he said.<br \/>\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; SpaceX plans to combine the Falcon Heavy with the company\u2019s Dragon capsule to demonstrate a lunar flyby, as was done during NASA\u2019s Apollo 8 mission in 1968, as well as carrying a robotic mission to bring samples back from Mars. The payload of this Mars mission would be about a quarter of the size of a payload to LEO.<br \/>\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; \u201cBy our projections, Falcon Heavy\u2019s capability will generate enough business for us that, in the long term, we will be producing a higher volume of [Merlin] engines than the rest of the world combined,\u201d Musk said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[04-05-11] SpaceX unveiled its Falcon Heavy rocket and expects the first demonstration launch of the vehicle to take place at Vandenberg Air Force, Calif., as early as 2013, CEO and CTO Elon Musk announced April 5 at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The Merlin engine-powered Falcon Heavy rocket had been in development [&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":[],"class_list":["post-85079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85079"}],"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=85079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85079\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}