Flacon heavy launch1/3/2023 ![]() ![]() With these additional orders perhaps by 2020 there will have been 10 Falcon Heavy flights and the flood gates will open allowing for more serious consideration of the Falcon Heavy for usage by the government. The Air Force has been open to using the F9, most recently on Decemwhen for the first time SpaceX launched a GPS satellite. A more likely scenario is that after a couple of successful Falcon Heavy flights we will see a significant uptick in Falcon Heavy orders including orders from some government sources such as the Air Force. At this rate and with the 10 flight criteria being applied it might be 2022 or 2023 before the Falcon Heavy is considered ready for use by the government. This only brings us to a total of 5 Falcon Heavy flights by 2020 or 2021. Counting one in 2018 we have two more planned for 2019 and in addition two more have been scheduled for out years. As can be readily seen the Falcon Heavy is quite a distance from having 10 successful flights. The second reason the Falcon Heavy has not had a great impact thus far is that among key policymakers behind the scenes there is a rule of thumb that a launch vehicle needs to be flown successfully 10 consecutive times in order to be considered a reliable option for government flights. ![]() It is rumored that the fights will use the same hardware for both the first stage side boosters and the center core, which would be a remarkable achievement. This has allowed SpaceX to plan for two additional Falcon Heavy flights in early 2019 using Block 5 technology. Although clearly there is more development in store for the Block Five technology a considerable degree of progress has been made. By early 2019 a single Block 5 Falcon 9 first stage has been reused three times and multiple Block 5 first stages have been flown twice. Block 5 Falcon 9 technology is targeted for 10 flights without a major refurbishment. The planned flights for later in the year were delayed while the F9 Block 5 re-usability technology was developed. The first reason the Falcon Heavy has not had more impact is that it only flew once in 2018. The lower costs of the F9 have enabled large-scale projects such as the recently finished complete refresh of the Iridium satellite network (eight F9 launches in total).NASA plans to rely on the Dragon 2/F9 along with the Boeing Starliner with the Atlas/Vulcan to ferry crews to the ISS.NASA relies heavily on the F9 to bring supplies to the ISS, and completely on the F9/Dragon to return experiments from the ISS.SpaceX has become a significant player in the EELV launch market in the U.S., and ULA has been forced to start the process of replacing both the Atlas V and the Delta IV with the still in development Vulcan.Arianespace has been forced to replace the no longer competitive Ariane 5 with the still in development Ariane 6.SpaceX in 2018 launched the same total number of rockets as Europe, Japan, and India combined.When the 2019 report on 2018 commercial launch activities appears in March, we can expect it to show similar results. in the lead with 21 commercial launch events (mostly SpaceX), Europe in second with 8 commercial launch events, and Russia a distant third with 3 commercial launch events. The 2018 FAA report on 2017 commercial launch activities shows the U.S.Russia has been for all practical purposes driven out of the commercial launch business, with SpaceX by itself in 2018 leading the number of Russian launches, commercial and governmental, 21 to 20.This situation lies in stark contrast to the impact of the Falcon 9, which includes at least the following: Yet here we sit, nearly one year later, and it is hard to discern the impact of the Falcon Heavy. Elon Musk’s Red Tesla roadster soared in the direction of Mars to tune of “Rocket Man.” The future of inexpensive, reusable rockets envisioned in the NSS position paper “ Now is the Time: A Paradigm Shift in Access to Space” (April 2017) appeared just around the corner. On Februthe first Falcon Heavy roared off the launch pad to a successful first flight. ![]() OPINION by Dale Skran, NSS Executive Vice President #Flacon heavy launch updateNOTE: An update of this post can be found here. ![]()
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