SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket is about to take flight for the first time in 40 months.
A Heavy Falcon is scheduled to launch classified mission USSF-44 for the US space force Tuesday (November 1). It will only be the fourth take-off for the Falcon Heavy, the most powerful rocket currently in flight, and the first since June 2019.
During this period of more than three years, SpaceX Launched over 100 missions with his workhorse Falcon 9 rocket. So why did the Heavy stay grounded?
Related: SpaceX is preparing for the 1st Falcon Heavy launch since 2019 (photo)
The rocket’s impressive muscle provides part of the answer. Most satellite operators don’t need a vehicle capable of delivering 70 tonnes (64 metric tons) of payload to low Earth orbit like the Heavy does, so they opt for cheaper medium-haul options like the Falcon 9. (SpaceX sells the Falcon 9 missions for $67 millionwhile a standard Heavy flight costs $97 million.)
“The bigger vehicles — really, it’s the government that needs them,” Phil Smith, a space industry analyst at Virginia-based consultancy BryceTech, told Space.com.
Strong rockets like the Falcon Heavy, that of Arianespace Ariadne 5 and United Launch Alliance’s Delta IV Heavy primarily launch large, custom-built satellites, Smith explained. And these craft tend to be built and operated by government agencies like NASA and the US National Reconnaissance Office, not commercial satellite companies.
Although these expensive single flights do not fly as frequently as telecommunications satellites, they do need fairly regular routes. An Ariane 5 launched NASA’s 10 billion dollars James Webb Space Telescope December 25, 2021, for example; the European vehicle also has two missions under its belt this year. The Delta IV Heavy has been launched three times since the Falcon Heavy last took off. So there must be more to the explanation than just a request.
There is, and much of it centers around bad luck — or, at least, some factor beyond SpaceX’s control.
“It’s not the vehicle, it’s the delivery of the spacecraft,” Smith said.
Several planned Falcon Heavy launches have been significantly pushed back due to issues with their satellites, he said. USSF-44 is one such mission; it was originally supposed to take off in late 2020, but payload issues scuttled that plan, as SpaceflightNow noted (opens in a new tab). (Military officials did not disclose the nature of the issues that caused the delay.)
from NASA Psyche Asteroid Mission is another example. Psyche, which will visit the strange metallic space rock it is named after, was to be launched atop a Falcon Heavy this fall. But software issues have pushed liftoff to July 2023 at the earliest, and there’s a chance the the mission could be canceled.
Indeed, a quick look at the Falcon Heavy manifesto shows that there is a strong demand for the heavyweight. For example, NASA has used the Heavy to launch some of its most high-profile hardware over the next few years, including the European Clipper Mission in 2024, key parts of the lunar-orbiting space station Gateway in the same year, and the Roman space telescope Nancy Grace in 2026.
SpaceX is working on a giant new rocket, called Spatialshipwhich the company says will eventually take over from Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy.
Starship could launch its first orbital test flight in the coming months and become operational within a year or two, if all goes well. But demand for Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy services will likely persist for a considerable period despite the availability of the new vehicle, Smith said.
“The Falcon 9 is an extremely popular and successful vehicle, and customers love it,” he said. “So it’s going to be for quite a while. And the Falcon Heavy – I have no reason to believe it won’t be either. System tooling remains, so as long as the factory is able to produce , [SpaceX] would provide that option from a marketing perspective.”
Mike Wall is the author of “The low (opens in a new tab)(Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for extraterrestrial life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall (opens in a new tab). Follow us on twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in a new tab) Or on Facebook (opens in a new tab).
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