Falcon Heavy successfully launches Psyche asteroid mission
SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket this morning successfully launched the Psyche mission to the metal asteroid Psyche, lifting off from Cape Canaveral.
The two side boosters successfully landed at their landing zones at the cape, each completing their fourth flight.
Psyche will now spend the next six years traveling to the asteroid Psyche, first flying by Mars in 2026 to gain some speed to get there. It will then go into orbit around the asteroid for almost two years.
The leaders in 2023 launch race:
72 SpaceX
45 China
13 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 India
American private enterprise now leads China in successfully launches 84 to 45, and the entire world combined 84 to 73. SpaceX by itself only trails the entire world combined (excluding American companies) 72 to 73.
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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. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
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SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket this morning successfully launched the Psyche mission to the metal asteroid Psyche, lifting off from Cape Canaveral.
The two side boosters successfully landed at their landing zones at the cape, each completing their fourth flight.
Psyche will now spend the next six years traveling to the asteroid Psyche, first flying by Mars in 2026 to gain some speed to get there. It will then go into orbit around the asteroid for almost two years.
The leaders in 2023 launch race:
72 SpaceX
45 China
13 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 India
American private enterprise now leads China in successfully launches 84 to 45, and the entire world combined 84 to 73. SpaceX by itself only trails the entire world combined (excluding American companies) 72 to 73.
The support of my readers through the years has given 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. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
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. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to 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.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five 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:
5. 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. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
Lots of well-deserved back-slaps for NASA and JPL, but I just want to add…
FALCON HEAVY, FOR THE WIN!!
And the same two side cores will reprise their performance for Europa Clipper next year.
How thankful NASA should be that Elon Musk decided to develop a super heavy launch vehicle entirely on his own hook, and that Gwynne Shotwell talked him out of cancelling it.
How would NASA even have launched this mission if SpaceX were not around?
And that pad queen is finally gone, so other launches can happen at LC-39A. While SLC-40 was launching every 4-5 days, (Probably limited more by ASDS turn around time than pad time now) LC-39A was launching maybe 2 a month at most.
They need to build another TEL just dedicated for Falcon Heavy to free up the pad time.
“They need to build another TEL just dedicated for Falcon Heavy to free up the pad time.”
Well, they recently got the lease on one at Vandenberg, at any rate (Space Launch Complex 6). That will give them two pads on each coast.
I know that the TEL must be of a different design (or at least a different modifiable configuration) between F9 and FH, but is there a difference in the configuration of the other pad infrastructure, for example the dimensions of the flame trench or the rainbirds? My hunch is that there is, but that SpaceX is hesitant to make such mods because they feel that the F9/FH generation will not be with us very much longer. I hope they are right, but I fear they may not be!
Ray Van Dune
Is that opinion based on the idea that once Starship launches, they will drop everything else?
The Falcon 9 system will last as long as there are customers from anyplace in the world.
Its like space equivalent of the VW Bug.
The Falcon 9 system will last as long as there are customers from anyplace in the world.
And Elon has been very, very clear on that point.
Government contracts alone are going to keep Falcon 9 running into the 2030’s. For starters, NASA has contracts with SpaceX to put its astronauts up to and from ISS through 2030 on Crew Dragon, and they are not going to want to shift that need over to Starship without LOTS and LOTS of flight operations to prove it could be human-rated.
In perfect world, Elon and his managers would like to be just operating Starship variants. But they are victims of their own success. Operating Falcon 9 and Starship for many years is the price they will have to pay for that success. It’s not the worst possible outcome!
I was searching for status of the Psyche vehicle but my searches keep coming up empty. Does anyone have updates? I’m specifically interested in the solar panel deployment. I’m not sure when they are scheduled for deployment but will be a whole lot happier when the are out and licked. Thanks
I think my point was that F9/FH would probably NOT go away as quickly as SpaceX might assume. Perhaps my wording was unclear?
Michael: The live stream ended just after the solar panels deployed successfully. At least, that’s what I understood.
Robert: Thank you. Happiness is.
I, too, believe that Falcon and Crew Dragon may last well into the next decade. The commercial space stations that are now being developed may not be expecting to handle the large Starship. It would be a large mass to slam into the space station during docking, and it would be a huge mass and mass moment of inertia to control during the time it is docked. Dragon may be better for the early space stations, especially if their crew sizes are in the single digits.
For similar reasons, I expect the manned Dream Chaser to last for at least a decade before becoming obsolete.