SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy completes second launch in 2023
SpaceX today successfully placed a Viasat communications satellite into geosynchronous orbit using its Falcon Heavy rocket, completing its second launch in 2023. Also on board were two smallsats.
The company did not recover either side booster or the core stage in order to give the rocket the maximum lift to put Viasat’s satellite into its proper orbit. With this flight, the two side boosters had successfully completed eight and three missions during their lifespan.
The leaders in the 2023 launch race:
28 SpaceX
16 China
6 Russia
3 Rocket Lab
3 India
American private enterprise now leads China 31 to 16 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 31 to 28. SpaceX by itself trails the entire world, including American companies, 28 to 31.
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SpaceX today successfully placed a Viasat communications satellite into geosynchronous orbit using its Falcon Heavy rocket, completing its second launch in 2023. Also on board were two smallsats.
The company did not recover either side booster or the core stage in order to give the rocket the maximum lift to put Viasat’s satellite into its proper orbit. With this flight, the two side boosters had successfully completed eight and three missions during their lifespan.
The leaders in the 2023 launch race:
28 SpaceX
16 China
6 Russia
3 Rocket Lab
3 India
American private enterprise now leads China 31 to 16 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 31 to 28. SpaceX by itself trails the entire world, including American companies, 28 to 31.
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:
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They did try to recover the fairings though!
I don’t think I imagined that the Heavy leaped off the pad at an extraordinary rate of climb! Rocket propulsion practice says that there is no benefit to using less than the full thrust available at any point in the launch, and somebody took that advice to heart! That rocket was in a hurry!
Ps. Yes, the Superheavy was apparently throttled to 90% for its initial climb-out, but that was for the purpose of reducing the stress on stages 0 and 1, not for any gain of overall performance.
It is a flex to expend those 3 boosters and keep flying ones with many more flights completed.
What is funny is that Elon thinks that the slower launch of Starship/SuperHeavy actually did more pad damage than a full bore launch.
And they started slower, not to spare the pad, but to take their time and ensure the engines all started ok and throttled up properly.
Can someone explain the final velocity numbers? Just before the 3rd (circularization) burn, the velocity was over 6000 km/hr. During the burn the velocity dropped to zero, then rose to a little over 300.
Ray van Dune , I do not believe that is accurate.
Some designs throttle down to get through Max Q, the. Throttle up again after.
Sippin_bourbon, you are correct but I think that also falls under the category of “moderating stress” on the rocket.
My point was that theory says running at anything less than full thrust represents a loss of efficiency, and thus does not let you achieve the maximum velocity for the propellant consumed. Other factors such as stress reduction may indeed require backing away from full thrust, but it represents less than the theoretical maximum performance.
Somebody no doubt did a trade study, and concluded that making the rocket beefier enough to punch through max-Q at full power would add more overall weight (and thus reduce performance more) than just designing a lighter rocket, but backing off the throttle for a few seconds at just the right time.
I agree that the circularization burn velocities look strange. The burn should increase the velocity to bring the perigee up.
Ray Van Dune,
You are correct about the difference between the theory and the practice. Your examples demonstrate the many tradeoffs that are made during the course of engineering any system.