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SpaceX Releases Animation of Planned Falcon Heavy Launch (gizmodo.com.au)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the combustion-cartoons dept.

intellitech writes: SpaceX CEO Elon Musk recently shared a new (and, really freaking cool) animation demonstrating how the company plans to launch the maiden flight of their Falcon Heavy system later this year, which will be the most powerful rocket since the Saturn V used for the moon landings during the Apollo-era. According to Elon Musk's Instragram post, "FH is twice the thrust of the next largest rocket currently flying and ~2/3 thrust of the Saturn V moon rocket." He also reiterates that there's a "lot that can go wrong in the November launch."

Direct link to the YouTube video.

4 of 108 comments (clear)

  1. Video was posted in 2015. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's not new.

  2. Actually, center booster will land on drone ship by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    according to Musk's twitter here

  3. Re:Animation? by Kjella · · Score: 4, Informative

    To be fair, I believe the launch delays began after the 06/15 CRS-7 crash.

    The first non-committal estimate was in 2008:

    By 2008, SpaceX were aiming for the first launch of Falcon 9 in 2009, and "Falcon 9 Heavy would be in a couple of years."

    By 2011:

    In April 2011, Elon Musk was targeting a first launch of Falcon Heavy from Vandenberg Air Force Base on the West Coast in 2013.

    It kept getting pushed back, then the CRS crash but initially only to April/May 2016:

    By September 2015, impacted by the failure of SpaceX CRS-7 that June, SpaceX rescheduled the maiden Falcon Heavy flight for April/May 2016, but by February 2016 had moved that back again to late 2016. The flight was now to be launched from the refurbished Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A. In August 2016, the demonstration flight was moved to early 2017, then to Summer 2017, and finally to November 2017.

    It's been "a couple years out" now for almost a decade and under a year since 2015. Musk's schedules should be taken with significant amounts of salt, he wants to move much faster than what they can manage in practice.

    --
    Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
  4. Re:Animation? by TechnoCore · · Score: 3, Informative

    The reason why it took so much longer time than the initial estimates was that SpaceX thought it would require just a few modifications to an existing falcon 9 rocket, by slapping on two side boosters.

    But the forces and stresses from having the side boosters on the core effectively meant they had to design the core from scratch again. It had to be able to withstand much larger stresses. Also having 27 engines close to each other rather than 9 increases vibration and heat. So in effect falcon heavy is almost a completely different rocket from falcon 9. And according to Musk, had they known this in advance they might not have gone down this path.

    What they have achieved so far is truly amazing. I'm happy to be alive right now :)