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Falcon Heavy - General Discussion

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I don't think so. Not because of weight but because of space. Good question though. I just don't think they could pack 30 Iridium satellites into the payload fairing. Which begs the question of how many they could fit in if they needed to?

Which is an issue for FH. That is where a rocket like New Glenn and Arianne Rocket come in. Those rockets have a larger fairing to fit larger payloads. New Glenn dropped its smaller fairing for the larger fairing because there was more demand for the larger fairing. I'm almost certain that SpaceX cannot increase the size of their fairing without a major redesign that the company is unwilling to do.

Back to Iridium. They have 40 satellites up and only have 35 more to go. All four of those launches should be completed by the end of the year. The second launch around April this year will be shared with a NASA payload.

Also Iridium is planned to be 66 satellites in 6 orbital planes, so can't have too many in one launch.
 
I just don't think they could pack 30 Iridium satellites into the payload fairing.
When FH starts doing commercial launches, is the fairing going to be bigger than what we have seen so far on the F? Will it be wider? Longer?

If it is going to be the same size (since the diameter of the rocket that mates to the fairing is the same for the FH as the F9) then I don’t see how a FH will be able to launch more Iridiium sats than an F9.
 
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When FH starts doing commercial launches, is the fairing going to be bigger than what we have seen so far on the F? Will it be wider? Longer?

If it is going to be the same size (since the diameter of the rocket that mates to the fairing is the same for the FH as the F9) then I don’t see how a FH will be able to launch more Iridiium sats than an F9.

That was my point. I don't think it can. I think the 10 Iridiums are stuffed into the current fairing as it is. FH and F9 fairings are the same size. I'm almost certain that they can't be made any larger either. Anything larger would cause an unacceptable level of instability in F9 and FH. So that leaves redesigning F9 and FH or leaving them alone and focusing on BFR. SpaceX and Elon have said they will focus on BFR.
 
Beating my own in extremis horse here -

Is there any way to responsibly conjecture dimensions of the Starlink satellites, esp. vis-a-vis those of Iridium?

Over in "Investor", folks are champs at conjecturing....not so good at doing it responsibly, tho....
 
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Beating my own in extremis horse here -

Is there any way to responsibly conjecture dimensions of the Starlink satellites, esp. vis-a-vis those of Iridium?

Over in "Investor", folks are champs at conjecturing....not so good at doing it responsibly, tho....

So is it fair to the say the volume of the payload enclosure is the same or not much higher in FH compared to F9?

If so what type of payloads are a good use case for FH ?
 
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So is it fair to the say the volume of the payload enclosure is the same or not much higher in FH compared to F9?

If so what type of payloads are a good use case for FH ?
I am not an expert. I think it’s fair to say the fairing volume is identical, or close to it. FH will enable more massive payloads, of equivalent volumes. I think what this means is that satellites can be made cheaper, without using exotic materials in order to reduce mass.
 
If so what type of payloads are a good use case for FH ?
Heavier payloads. There are already two FH missions scheduled for later this year; Arabsat 6A and SPT-2 (US Air Force), and potentially the lunar “space tourist” mission. More will come in the future now that the lift capability is available.
 
Is there any way to responsibly conjecture dimensions of the Starlink satellites, esp. vis-a-vis those of Iridium?
My conjecture is that the Starlink sats will be much smaller than the Iridium sats, as well as much less costly to manufacture. Elon wants to build them on an assembly line at speed. He thinks the commsat industry is ripe for revolution.
 
Where is the best locations to view this launch?

Can we just take our RV and park on the side of the road like my dad did in the 60's for the Saturn launches?

That's an acceptable option, just being in the local area for seeing a launch. You can use google for "shuttle launch viewing locations" or something like that since SpaceX is using the same launch pad that the Space Shuttle used. Several locations (parks) around the area have audio feeds from NASA, so you don't need to arrange other ways to listen to news/launch coverage. My father and I saw STS-131 by just finding a parking lot and following the crowds of people.

There are several good viewing locations along the shore of the mainland or you can get onto the grounds at KSC. Viewing from the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Center has a view that is blocked while the rocket is on the ground, but it's visible soon after launch. I'm assuming you can still get tickets for viewing launches on the KSC grounds while out on the NASA Causeway (line-of-sight to the launch pad - I believe this is the closest spot the public can get to the pad for launch). Tickets for this viewing location when the Shuttle program was shutting down would sell out in minutes, eventually needing a lottery distribution system. I'm assuming there isn't as much public interest in the SpaceX launches, so tickets would be readily available.
 
Is there any way to responsibly conjecture dimensions of the Starlink satellites, esp. vis-a-vis those of Iridium?

How do you define responsible? :p

Iridium (and globalstar, if you want to count them) have reasonably large units—call it 3mx2mx1m and 700kg—but also nowhere near the data performance or target market of the proposed mega constellations so it’s hard to do an apples to apples scaling. O3B are more or less the same size/mass but there are way fewer of them, so even less apples to apples. Orbcomm OTOH are WAY smaller—like 1x.5x.5 and 180kg for the latest gen—but again aren’t targeting the same mission as starlink.

Towing the line of responsibility and jumping over all the other paper internet constellations, Starlink is probably fixing to come in with dimensions around .75-1m (and a shallow trapezoidal cross section) and 150kg.
 
Quite frankly, I don't understand why SpaceX went ahead with Falcon Heavy once they came up with this year's concept of BFR for everyone and everything; at that point, Heavy should have simply been abandoned and they should have gone straight to the final Falcon 9 inventory builds and switched wholesale to BFR (their stated plans after Falcon Heavy).
 
Quite frankly, I don't understand why SpaceX went ahead with Falcon Heavy once they came up with this year's concept of BFR for everyone and everything; at that point, Heavy should have simply been abandoned and they should have gone straight to the final Falcon 9 inventory builds and switched wholesale to BFR (their stated plans after Falcon Heavy).

They still have contracts to launch satellites that are too heavy/ high for even an expendable Falcon 9 (two FH scheduled this year). It is not good business to delay your customer multiple (more) years. FH is also more learning for SpaceX in terms of multi-engine performance and control.
 
Quite frankly, I don't understand why SpaceX went ahead with Falcon Heavy once they came up with this year's concept of BFR for everyone and everything; at that point, Heavy should have simply been abandoned and they should have gone straight to the final Falcon 9 inventory builds and switched wholesale to BFR (their stated plans after Falcon Heavy).
Well, given the accuracy of Elon's and Spacex's predictions for when things are going to fly, I think having a bird in the hand is worth quite a few as yet unknown birds in some future bush.
 
That's an acceptable option, just being in the local area for seeing a launch. You can use google for "shuttle launch viewing locations" or something like that since SpaceX is using the same launch pad that the Space Shuttle used. Several locations (parks) around the area have audio feeds from NASA, so you don't need to arrange other ways to listen to news/launch coverage. My father and I saw STS-131 by just finding a parking lot and following the crowds of people.

There are several good viewing locations along the shore of the mainland or you can get onto the grounds at KSC. Viewing from the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Center has a view that is blocked while the rocket is on the ground, but it's visible soon after launch. I'm assuming you can still get tickets for viewing launches on the KSC grounds while out on the NASA Causeway (line-of-sight to the launch pad - I believe this is the closest spot the public can get to the pad for launch). Tickets for this viewing location when the Shuttle program was shutting down would sell out in minutes, eventually needing a lottery distribution system. I'm assuming there isn't as much public interest in the SpaceX launches, so tickets would be readily available.

Awesome info. Thanks!
 
Quite frankly, I don't understand why SpaceX went ahead with Falcon Heavy once they came up with this year's concept of BFR for everyone and everything; at that point, Heavy should have simply been abandoned and they should have gone straight to the final Falcon 9 inventory builds and switched wholesale to BFR (their stated plans after Falcon Heavy).
I’m going to trust that SpaceX has good reasons for devoting the effort to make the FH a reality. My completely non-expert / zero professional aerospace experience guess is that not only are there lots of potential commercial missions that only FH can do (as @bxr140 pointed out upthread) but that since it is going to be over four years before the first BFR is built and launched, and that two cargo-only BFRs are planned for the targeted 2022 first Mission to Mars (as per Elon’s 2017 IAC presentation) and of course it is likely to be years later than that “aspirational” launch date (Elon’s word) that there will be plenty of revenue generated by FH launches for years to come and therefore there are very good reasons to make it a reality ASAP.

You seem to be saying that all the work SpaceX has done over the past 6 years on the FH should have been dumped last year and that if that was done the BFR would be a reality and available for commercial launches in a much faster timeframe than what Elon announced in September 2017.

That does not sound like a good plan to me because the BFR is going to be a huge challenge for SpaceX and require a lot of funding. FH can contribute to that funding by charging good money for commercial payloads that no other launch provider can handle. And since FH can use two flight proven cores for every launch (since SpaceX has quite an inventory of them) my guess is that SpaceX’s profit on an FH launch will be high while at the same time it will be able to undercut in price any other launch vehicle.

Some might then point out that the BO New Glenn will offer more payload capability at a competitive price and take launches from FH. My response would be that New Glenn is at least two years away from the first test launch and doesn’t even exist yet. During that time SpaceX will continue to refine their manufacturing and launch processes and reducing costs and improving their already massive competitive edge. BO has a long way to go to catch up; it still has not lifted anything to orbit!

Just my non-expert opinion. If you have some professional aerospace experience that leads you to a different conclusion I would like to hear it.
 
On fairing size and volume: the Falcon 9 user guide clearly identities commonality between Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy as a competitive advantage. See here at page 6: http://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/files/falcon_9_users_guide_rev_2.0.pdf

Think about it: there have been a handful of missions slated for Falcon Heavy that ended up flying on Falcon 9 Full Thrust/later Block versions. Customers got an earlier launch and a likely lower price.
Probably only possible because of said commonality between vehicles.

Heavy, as the name implies, is about more weight, not volume, to orbit.