SpaceX launch schedule heats up
A close look at SpaceX’s launch schedule through the rest of 2014 calls for six Falcon 9 launches, including two before the end of August.
If the company is successfully in maintaining this schedule, they will end any doubts about their ability to transform the launch industry. Every other launch company will have to match their prices, or lose their customers.
One paragraph in the article does tell us that there are limits to the re-usability of the Falcon 9 first stage, even if they do succeed in bringing it back safely to a vertical landing on land.
With the upcoming ASIASAT missions involving heavy birds that require very high velocity transfers en-route to their geostationary destination, there won’t be enough residual propellant on the F9 v1.1 core for landing attempts.
This has not been a secret, but this quote drives the point home. Until they replace the Merlin engine with the more powerful Raptor engine and thus significantly increase the rocket’s efficiency, they will never be able to reuse any of it for geosynchronous commercial flights.
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In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
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A close look at SpaceX’s launch schedule through the rest of 2014 calls for six Falcon 9 launches, including two before the end of August.
If the company is successfully in maintaining this schedule, they will end any doubts about their ability to transform the launch industry. Every other launch company will have to match their prices, or lose their customers.
One paragraph in the article does tell us that there are limits to the re-usability of the Falcon 9 first stage, even if they do succeed in bringing it back safely to a vertical landing on land.
With the upcoming ASIASAT missions involving heavy birds that require very high velocity transfers en-route to their geostationary destination, there won’t be enough residual propellant on the F9 v1.1 core for landing attempts.
This has not been a secret, but this quote drives the point home. Until they replace the Merlin engine with the more powerful Raptor engine and thus significantly increase the rocket’s efficiency, they will never be able to reuse any of it for geosynchronous commercial flights.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
100% chance of their schedule slipping but how close they come should tell us something.
They acknowledge that large GeoSync payloads need to use Falcon Heavy. This is a case of a payload they can handle, but not with the 30% reserve for reuse on the regular F9.
The future is F-Heavy for big stuff, and for the large amount of smaller payloads, reuse with a F9. And they claim to plan to get all three cores back from a Falcon Heavy.
To get the full 53mT out of an FH they will have to sacrifice reusablility it looks like, but that is where Raptor comes in for a more powerful booster.
Whether the schedule slips (I agree that it will), or whether reusability is as advertised, or whether Falcon Heavy comes on line as scheduled, the fact is that Space X is launching real hardware with real payloads in real time, and doing so while maintaining an aggressive development program. They are the most dynamic outfit going, and I can’t imagine but that they are swamped with applications from every corner of the planet.
Virgin Galactic demonstrated an ability to loft (barely) man-rated vehicles to sub-orbital altitudes, but ten years on have not been able to capitalize. As much as I wanted (and would still like) to see them succeed, that eventuality seems ever more remote.
I would love Spacex to understand that the way to go is and always has been, to use wings on each component of the system, wheels and a jet engine or 2; so that the components [ first and second stages, etc.] can return back to the airports that they need to get back to without excessive use of fuel / weight. For those who wonder, calculate the weight of wings able to lift a 30 ton object and you will see that it is possible.
Another idea that is really needed is to increase the initial acceleration of the system through the use of launch boosters – get up to 3.5 g at the beginning and throughout the entire flight – except for the Max Q area, of course. In this way you can get to orbit in about 6.5 min. and are much more efficient in the use of the lifting ability of the craft. The boosters do not have to be light weight as they only boost for a short point in time before letting go and returning to the airport near thew launch sight.
Oh well, fuel for thought!
SpaceX is not going to sacrifice Falcon 9’s engine-out fault-tolerance and reusability by building a future version of it with a single Raptor engine. Besides being clustered on cores for SpaceX’s future BFR’s, single Raptors might well figure in a future high-thrust, high-energy upper stage for Falcon Heavy. As for GTO comsat missions and reusability, the trend line in comsats is toward less weight, not more as electric thrusters replace hypergolic thrusters. Even without any additional uprating of the Merlin 1-D, Falcon 9 will be able to put many future comsats into GTO and still retain reusability. The Falcon 9 also has a lift capacity growth path that includes a possible stretched upper stage with a pair of Merlin 1-D Vacuum engines instead of the current single one.