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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: 2) by takyon on Friday July 21 2017, @12:51AM (2 children)

    by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Friday July 21 2017, @12:51AM (#542120) Journal

    True, but Falcon Heavy could theoretically lift 4 or 5 times what SaturnV or Energia could.

    What does that mean? That they will have 10x more launches of Falcon Heavy?

    Falcon Heavy is neat. But if you want to get excited about something, the planned SpaceX Interplanetary Transport System launch vehicle [wikipedia.org] would have 2x the LEO payload of Saturn V [wikipedia.org] in reusable mode, and 4x in expendable mode.

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  • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday July 21 2017, @05:15AM (1 child)

    by kaszz (4211) on Friday July 21 2017, @05:15AM (#542200) Journal

    What does that mean? That they will have 10x more launches of Falcon Heavy?

    Presumably that it can be scaled up. Some designs can't.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Friday July 21 2017, @05:20AM

      by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Friday July 21 2017, @05:20AM (#542201) Journal

      I don't think Falcon Heavy will be "scaled up" that much. Falcon 9 was actually scaled up somewhat, allowing it to lift more massive loads including some intended for launch with Falcon Heavy. But at the end of the day the next step is to go from Falcon Heavy to the Interplanetary Transport System, in order to lift superheavy loads much bigger than what Saturn V could lift. And it will be glorious (if it gets made).

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