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Elon Musk Says Successful Maiden Flight for Falcon Heavy Unlikely

posted by Fnord666 on Thursday July 20 2017, @06:54PM   Printer-friendly
from the it-IS-rocket-science dept.

martyb writes:

Speaking at the International Space Station Research and Development conference, Elon Musk said that a successful maiden flight for Falcon Heavy was unlikely:

SpaceX CEO and founder Elon Musk has downplayed the chances of a successful inaugural flight for his Falcon Heavy space launch vehicle, admitting there is a "good chance it would not make it to orbit in its first launch."

Development of the booster rocket, which is powered by 27 engines, has proven to be "way harder than the team initially thought," he told the International Space Station Research and Development conference on Wednesday.

Falcon Heavy will be the most powerful rocket booster in the world, capable of delivering a 54 ton payload into orbit.

Musk said that combining three Falcon 9 rockets together had multiplied vibrations throughout the vehicle making it difficult to test without a launch.

The maiden test flight is due to take place toward the end of the year.

As if watching the inaugural launch of the most powerful rocket since the Saturn V were not tempting enough, how many more people will watch in hopes of seeing it go BOOM!?

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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday July 20 2017, @11:23PM (2 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday July 20 2017, @11:23PM (#542100) Journal
    That is correct. The idea behind the cross-feed scheme is that the fuel on the two external boosters is used first to power all 27 rocket engines. Then when the two external boosters empty, they are jettisoned, and it becomes a fully fueled Falcon 9 for the remainder of the ride.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 21 2017, @12:51PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 21 2017, @12:51PM (#542334)

    I think I read somewhere that they gave up on (or maybe postponed) propellant crossfeed, and the first FHs were just going to use differential throttling to conserve fuel in the center core.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday July 21 2017, @03:29PM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday July 21 2017, @03:29PM (#542408) Journal
      Interesting. I see Elon Musk tweeted [twitter.com] in April, 2016:

      @lukealization No cross feed. It would help performance, but is not needed for these numbers.

      It sounds like the additional plumbing was causing more trouble than it was worth.