Elon Musk held a news conference last week to announce the Falcon Heavy rocket. It's built using the existing Falcon 9 rocket. The image below shows some of the highlights.
With 3 cores each having 9 engines each the Falcon Heavy uses a total 27 rocket engines. At first this makes me wonder if its design is too complex, but with cross feeding of propellant there is the ability to prevent engines from premature shutoff [see comments below for discussion on this feature]. Liquid rockets engines seem to require lots of "plumbing" and the former Soviet Union couldn't get the N1 (their answer to the Saturn V) successfully into orbit because of failures. The N1's first stage had 30 engines.
It seems like SpaceX has a new approach that may payoff in huge dividends. If they can make a dependable heavy lift rocket they could take business away from existing commpanies. Also at the press conference Musk promised "every day low prices". Creating a business using fixed pricing for services is a huge risk, but starting from scratch with their design gives them more control and confidence to what they can offer.
It's all very exciting. I also recommend listening to this episode of The Space Show hosted by Dr. David Livingston where his guest is Bob Zimmerman. I agree that Musk is working ahead of the curve in that he's developing a heavy lift rocket with his design before NASA forces their design on SpaceX. Musk stated in the press conference that the Falcon Heavy is designed to meet NASA's human rating criteria, but everything else is designed by SpaceX.
The demonstration launch of the Falcon Heavy could be as early late 2012.
1 comment:
I'm not sure cross-feeding can help prevent engines from failing. My understanding is that it can help leave the central core full of fuel at the time of booster separation--allowing the rocket to burn for a longer time free of the booster mass.
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