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In 2011, Elon Musk announced that SpaceX would commission a higher-capacity launch vehicle, built on the same technology platform as the Falcon 9 (currently at version 1.1).This new rocket is designed to lift more tonnage to orbit than any rocket currently commissioned on Earth. While it doesn’t have the same throw weight as the Saturn V, which still holds the record at 118,000 kg to low Earth orbit (LEO), Falcon Heavy will be capable of lifting up to 53,000 kg to LEO. SpaceX’s Lee Rosen, VP of mission and launch operations, has announced that SpaceX was wrapping up its renovations to the old Shuttle launch pad, which it currently leases from NASA. The first flight for Falcon Heavy is currently set for the “late April-early May timeframe.” The initial launch will simply be a demonstration mission rather than a payload delivery, but if all goes well, the Falcon Heavy will enter service with customers by September. The first mission is a September 2 2016 launch, in which Falcon Heavy will deploy 37 satellites for the US Air Force. This will be followed by satellite launches for Inmarsat and ViaSat before the end of 2016, though the company declined to give dates for these. Falcon Heavy’s launch schedule has been pushed back several times already by a combination of development delays and the loss of multiple Falcon 9s earlier this year. While SpaceX believes it has that problem well in hand, rocketry is a conservative business — well, as conservative as you can be while igniting huge amounts of propellant below a glorified metal tube with a total value measured in dozens or hundreds of millions of dollars. The long-term goal for Falcon Heavy is for it to use the same reusable launch technology that’s being developed for the Falcon 9. It’s been presumed that the same technology changes that have been rolled into Falcon 9 as that design matures will be deployed for Falcon Heavy as well. Not only does it potentially save money to keep both families operating a single rocket version, it allows the Falcon Heavy design to learn from Falcon 9’s successes and failures. If SpaceX follows its previous schedule, it will launch the Falcon Heavy in a conventional version first, then begin attempting to recover the vehicle stages after launch. The Falcon Heavy doesn’t have enough lift capacity to launch manned missions to other planets, but it could be instrumental in extending the types of science experiments we could perform with remote devices. SpaceX has previously stated it believes that Falcon Heavy could land payloads of 2000-4000kg (4400 – 8800 lb) on the surface of Mars. That’s more than 4x the weight of Curiosity, and could allow for unprecedented exploration of Mars or the moons of Jupiter. NASA’s SLS will be required for further manned exploration of the solar system, but that system isn’t expected to reach its full potential until 2030. Source http://www.extremetech.com/ -
NASA’s new heavy-lift rocket, designed to fly astronauts to the moon, asteroids and eventually Mars, likely will not have its debut test flight until November 2018, nearly a year later than previous estimates, agency officials said on Wednesday. NASA is 70 percent confident of making a November 2018 launch date, given the technical, financial and management hurdles the Space Launch System faces on the road to development, NASA associate administrators Robert Lightfoot and Bill Gerstenmaier told reporters on a conference call. NASA estimates it could spend almost $12 billion developing the first of three variations of the rocket and associated ground systems through the debut flight, and potentially billions more to build and fly heavier-lift next-generation boosters, a July 2014 General Accountability Office report on the program said. While the rocket might be ready for a test flight in December 2017, as previously planned, the new assessment showed the odds of that were “significantly less” than the 70 percent confidence level NASA requires of new programs, Gerstenmaier said. “We want to commit to this (November 2018) date and show that we can meet it,” added Lightfoot. The schedule assumes flat annual budgets of about $1.3 billion for the SLS rocket and another $1.5 billion for Orion crew capsule and associated ground launch systems at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The GAO report found that NASA’s SLS rocket program was about $400 million short of meeting its December 2017 target. The rocket is a modified version of the shuttle-derived, heavy-lift booster developed under NASA’s previous exploration initiative known as Constellation. The U.S. space agency spent about $9 billion on Constellation, which included the Orion capsule, from 2005 to 2010, before President Obama axed the program. Its goal was to return astronauts to the surface of the moon by 2020. Instead, the White House and Congress approved a flexible path toward Mars, including a visit to an asteroid that will be robotically relocated into a high lunar orbit. NASA did not say if the 11-month slip in the new rocket’s debut flight, which will be an unmanned test run around the moon, would impact the second mission, slated for 2021, with a two-member crew. Initially, the SLS rocket, which uses leftover space shuttle main engines and shuttle-derived solid rocket boosters, will be able to put about 77 tons (70 metric tons) into an orbit about 100 miles (160 km) above Earth. Later versions are expected to carry nearly twice that load. Ultimately, the rocket is expected to be used to launch astronauts and equipment to Mars. “Our nation has embarked on a very ambitious space exploration program and we owe it to the American taxpayers to get this right,” Lightfoot said. SOurce: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/27/us-space-nasa-rocket-idUSKBN0GR2EB20140827
