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.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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.