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posted by martyb on Saturday October 27 2018, @02:51PM   Printer-friendly
from the big-payload-needs-big-rocket dept.

SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket seems to be a hit with satellite companies

When the Falcon Heavy rocket launched for the first time in February, some critics of the company wondered what exactly the rocket's purpose was. After all, the company's Falcon 9 rocket had become powerful enough that it could satisfy the needs of most commercial customers. One such critic even told me, "The Falcon Heavy is just a vanity project for Elon Musk."

[...] Last week, the Swedish satellite company Ovzon signed a deal for a Falcon Heavy launch as early as late 2020 for a geostationary satellite mission. And just on Thursday, ViaSat announced that it, too, had chosen the Falcon Heavy to launch one of its future ViaSat-3 satellite missions in the 2020 to 2022 timeframe.

[...] In explaining their rocket choice, both Ovzon and ViaSat cited the ability of the Falcon Heavy to deliver heavy payloads "direct"—or almost directly—to geostationary orbit, an altitude nearly 36,000km above the Earth's surface. Typically, rockets launching payloads bound for geostationary orbit drop their satellites into a "transfer" orbit, from which the satellite itself must spend time and propellant to reach the higher orbit. (More on these orbits can be found here).

[...] The demonstration flight of the Falcon Heavy apparently convinced not only the military of the rocket's direct-to-geo capability but satellite fleet operators as well. The Falcon Heavy rocket now seems nicely positioned to offer satellite companies relatively low-cost access to orbits they desire, with a minimum of time spent getting there in space.

See also: SpaceX heading to two to four Falcon Heavy paid launches per year

Related: How to Get Back to the Moon in 4 Years, Permanently
Falcon Heavy Maiden Launch Successful (Mostly)
SpaceX Confirms it Lost the Center Core of the Falcon Heavy
After the Falcon Heavy Launch, Time to Defund the Space Launch System?
NASA's Chief of Human Spaceflight Rules Out Use of Falcon Heavy for Lunar Station
SpaceX's Falcon Heavy Could Launch Japanese and European Payloads to Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway


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  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday October 27 2018, @06:16PM (1 child)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Saturday October 27 2018, @06:16PM (#754494) Journal

    BFR, assuming it is completed, will surpass Falcon Heavy in every way. Both stages fully reusable, reusable fairing, more payload to orbit than Falcon Heavy. It can be reusable in part due to packing more units of a more powerful rocket engine, Raptor, which is slightly larger but at least two times more powerful.

    The interesting part is that BFR looks like complete overkill until the reusability goal comes into the picture. The whole BFR is more than 3 times more massive than Falcon Heavy. It's possible that a lot of missions using the BFR/BFS would be wasteful. With the rear cargo pods and a lot of extra fuel, maybe it could be inserting smallsats into a different orbit than the primary payload on most missions and still have enough propellant left to land.

    From what I hear, Blue Origin's BE-4 rocket engine surpasses Raptor, and it has a higher thrust. But if you really want to make an improvement, maybe nuclear is the answer [soylentnews.org].

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  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday October 27 2018, @06:27PM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Saturday October 27 2018, @06:27PM (#754498) Journal

    Please don't use the N-word.

    inB4 some greeny cites space weaons agreements, and ecology concerns.