Falcon Heavy to be officially launched?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th6HQ9RtVCE

Content of the email I (and, undoubtedly, many others) just got:

Something Big is Coming

Elon Musk Holding Press Conference on Tuesday, April 5th

Elon Musk, CEO and Chief Technical Officer of SpaceX, will hold a press
conference on Tuesday, April 5th at 11:20am EST to discuss SpaceX's
latest venture.

Get a sneak peak of the discussion on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th6HQ9RtVCE.

The press conference will be webcast live at:
http://www.visualwebcaster.com/spacex. The press conference will also
be accessible via the home page of SpaceX.com by clicking the main
banner. If you are unable to watch live, the press conference will be
archived at http://www.visualwebcaster.com/spacex for future viewing.

If so, 32 tonnes at 2/3 the cost of Delta IV Heavy.... Bye Bye Boeing!

But one has to ask, where is the money coming from for this? In these times,
it has to be said that one is dubious about it being anything other than,
The King is dead, Long live the )new?) King?

Brian

--
Brian Gaff -
Note:- In order to reduce spam, any email without 'Brian Gaff'
in the display name may be lost.
Blind user, so no pictures please!
"Alan Erskine" wrote in message
.com...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th6HQ9RtVCE

Content of the email I (and, undoubtedly, many others) just got:

Something Big is Coming

Elon Musk Holding Press Conference on Tuesday, April 5th

Elon Musk, CEO and Chief Technical Officer of SpaceX, will hold a press
conference on Tuesday, April 5th at 11:20am EST to discuss SpaceX's latest
venture.

Get a sneak peak of the discussion on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th6HQ9RtVCE.

The press conference will be webcast live at:
http://www.visualwebcaster.com/spacex. The press conference will also be
accessible via the home page of SpaceX.com by clicking the main banner.
If you are unable to watch live, the press conference will be archived at
http://www.visualwebcaster.com/spacex for future viewing.

If so, 32 tonnes at 2/3 the cost of Delta IV Heavy.... Bye Bye Boeing!

In article ,
says...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th6HQ9RtVCE

Content of the email I (and, undoubtedly, many others) just got:

Something Big is Coming

Elon Musk Holding Press Conference on Tuesday, April 5th

Elon Musk, CEO and Chief Technical Officer of SpaceX, will hold a press
conference on Tuesday, April 5th at 11:20am EST to discuss SpaceX's
latest venture.

Get a sneak peak of the discussion on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th6HQ9RtVCE.

The press conference will be webcast live at:
http://www.visualwebcaster.com/spacex. The press conference will also
be accessible via the home page of SpaceX.com by clicking the main
banner. If you are unable to watch live, the press conference will be
archived at http://www.visualwebcaster.com/spacex for future viewing.

If so, 32 tonnes at 2/3 the cost of Delta IV Heavy.... Bye Bye Boeing!

Yea, the preview video makes it clear that it's a Falcon 9 Heavy. A
black and white drawing of the thing can be seen near the end of the
video. If they can make the Falcon 9 Heavy work, they'll be hanging
with the "big dogs" for sure.

Jeff
--
" Solids are a branch of fireworks, not rocketry. :-) :-) ", Henry
Spencer 1/28/2011

On 5/04/2011 5:47 PM, Brian Gaff wrote:
But one has to ask, where is the money coming from for this? In these times,
it has to be said that one is dubious about it being anything other than,
The King is dead, Long live the )new?) King?

Brian


SpaceX site says the Falcon Heavy will launch 2012/2013 from Vandenberg
- US recon sat launcher?

In article m,
says...

On 5/04/2011 5:47 PM, Brian Gaff wrote:
But one has to ask, where is the money coming from for this? In these times,
it has to be said that one is dubious about it being anything other than,
The King is dead, Long live the )new?) King?

Brian


SpaceX site says the Falcon Heavy will launch 2012/2013 from Vandenberg
- US recon sat launcher?

It's going to be a big launcher, capable of launching a 53,000 kg
payload into an orbit of 28.5 degrees inclination at 200 km altitude.

http://www.spacex.com/falcon_heavy.php

The most interesting (new) feature I see is "propellant cross-feed from
the side boosters to the center core". This has never been done on any
launch vehicle to date, so it will be very interesting to see how
easy/hard it will be for SpaceX to get this to work.

Of course, even if they can't get it to work they say, "Should cross-
feed not be required for lower mass missions, it can be easily turned
off". It would be interesting to find out just how much this would
impact Falcon Heavy's payload capacity.

Jeff
--
" Solids are a branch of fireworks, not rocketry. :-) :-) ", Henry
Spencer 1/28/2011

On Tue, 5 Apr 2011 08:47:32 +0100, "Brian Gaff"
wrote:

But one has to ask, where is the money coming from for this?

Where is the money coming for what? It is a commercial project. Here
in America we can do pretty much whatever we want with our own money
or whatever money we can convince investors to cough up. The Falcon 1
experience is behind them, and Falcon 9 has so far looked pretty good.
SpaceX shouldn't have much trouble getting investors.

If Mr. Musk's company can build a rocket with twice the lift capacity
of Delta IV-Heavy at 25% the cost, it will kill off Delta IV just as
quickly as DoD/NRO can say "thank you for your service, there's the
door" and Atlas V will be relegated to a couple of launches per year
as the backup vehicle (no more dependance on Russian engines will be
hugely attractive to DoD.) That's a big chunk of money right there.
And after a few more successful Falcon 9 launches, if SpaceX keeps it
prices as low as they claim, Falcon Heavy will quickly become a major
player, and Ariane's supremacy in the commercial market will be in
great peril.

Of course, that's all *if*. I suspect it won't be nearly as easy to
build and launch that many cores and engines every year as they are
claiming now.

Brian

On Tue, 5 Apr 2011 15:36:20 -0400, Jeff Findley
wrote:

It's going to be a big launcher, capable of launching a 53,000 kg
payload into an orbit of 28.5 degrees inclination at 200 km altitude.

Yes, but what payloads need that capacity anytime in the next decade?
Three giant GEO satellites at the same time? Good luck scheduling
that.

http://www.spacex.com/falcon_heavy.php

The most interesting (new) feature I see is "propellant cross-feed from
the side boosters to the center core". This has never been done on any
launch vehicle to date, so it will be very interesting to see how
easy/hard it will be for SpaceX to get this to work.

It hasn't exactly been done, but Atlas had something like it with its
"stage and a half" engines that had to have severable connections to
tankage in flight (and that was in 1959), and Saturn IB had multiple
propellant tanks that had to pump around fuel in-flight (but they were
all integrated as one unit, not hanging off the side of a core.)

It's about damned time someone implement crossfeed. Delta IV-Heavy
could do it, but it's probably too little, too late for Delta. It's
toast if Falcon Heavy even comes in 100% overbudget.

Brian

On 04/05/2011 02:36 PM, Jeff Findley wrote:
In pond.com,
says...

On 5/04/2011 5:47 PM, Brian Gaff wrote:
But one has to ask, where is the money coming from for this? In these times,
it has to be said that one is dubious about it being anything other than,
The King is dead, Long live the )new?) King?

Brian


SpaceX site says the Falcon Heavy will launch 2012/2013 from Vandenberg
- US recon sat launcher?

It's going to be a big launcher, capable of launching a 53,000 kg
payload into an orbit of 28.5 degrees inclination at 200 km altitude.

http://www.spacex.com/falcon_heavy.php

The most interesting (new) feature I see is "propellant cross-feed from
the side boosters to the center core". This has never been done on any
launch vehicle to date, so it will be very interesting to see how
easy/hard it will be for SpaceX to get this to work.

Of course, even if they can't get it to work they say, "Should cross-
feed not be required for lower mass missions, it can be easily turned
off". It would be interesting to find out just how much this would
impact Falcon Heavy's payload capacity.

The previously announced payload capacity (32,000 kg) assumed Merlin 1C
and no crossfeed, so I assume a launch with Merlin 1D and crossfeed
disabled would be somewhere in between. Based on the specs of the 1C vs
the 1D, I would say most of the performance increase comes from the
Merlin, not the crossfeed, so probably closer to 53 than 32.

Still big enough for the heaviest DoD/NRO payloads.

On 04/05/2011 05:32 PM, Brian Thorn wrote:
On Tue, 5 Apr 2011 08:47:32 +0100, "Brian Gaff"
wrote:

But one has to ask, where is the money coming from for this?

Where is the money coming for what? It is a commercial project. Here
in America we can do pretty much whatever we want with our own money
or whatever money we can convince investors to cough up. The Falcon 1
experience is behind them, and Falcon 9 has so far looked pretty good.
SpaceX shouldn't have much trouble getting investors.

If Mr. Musk's company can build a rocket with twice the lift capacity
of Delta IV-Heavy at 25% the cost, it will kill off Delta IV just as
quickly as DoD/NRO can say "thank you for your service, there's the
door" and Atlas V will be relegated to a couple of launches per year
as the backup vehicle (no more dependance on Russian engines will be
hugely attractive to DoD.)

Atlas V can't carry the heaviest DoD/NRO payloads, since the Heavy was
never completed past CDR. I don't think DoD/NRO will be comfortable
without a backup vehicle for *all* payload classes, so they will have an
interesting choice between Delta (more expensive, but exists) versus
Atlas (cheaper but need to develop the Heavy).

On Tue, 05 Apr 2011 18:42:23 -0500, "Jorge R. Frank"
wrote:


Atlas V can't carry the heaviest DoD/NRO payloads, since the Heavy was
never completed past CDR. I don't think DoD/NRO will be comfortable
without a backup vehicle for *all* payload classes, so they will have an
interesting choice between Delta (more expensive, but exists) versus
Atlas (cheaper but need to develop the Heavy).

They don't have one now, either. Atlas V-Heavy would be the backup to
Falcon Heavy just as it is now for Delta IV-Heavy.

Brian