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.
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 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.
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
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.