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SpaceX’s first Falcon Heavy rocket launch in nearly two years has entered the final stages of preparations – acceptance testing, delivery and assembly of flight hardware.
Comprised of five major components, the vast majority of Falcon Heavy’s build and launch challenges come from the rocket’s three first stage boosters – each more or less equivalent to a single-core Falcon 9 booster. Falcon Heavy’s two-sided boosters are by far the most visually recognizable sign of this similar but different nature thanks to the need for aerodynamic noses instead of the normal gap of a Falcon booster (a hollow cylinder).
While easily recognizable, the central core is the most technically Falcon Heavy specific part of SpaceX’s partially reusable heavy transport rocket, requiring a single cell compared to the side cores, which are essentially Falcon 9 boosters with a few add-ons. major ons. It is one of those Falcon Heavy side boosters that was spotted traveling by road from SpaceX test facilities to a launch pad in Florida on Tuesday, January 26.
For unknown reasons, although SpaceX currently has two reused Falcon Heavy side boosters that flew a second time on the US Air Force’s own STP-2 mission, the company has made brand new boosters – likely at the request of the US military – for the fourth of the rocket. launch. Cropped from AFSPC-44 to USSF-44, this mission will see SpaceX attempt its very first direct launch to GEO, nominally launching a multi-ton mystery satellite directly into geostationary orbit (GEO).
The main challenge with direct launches to GEO is the need for the top stage of a given rocket to roll for hours in orbit, and then reignite after this period of coasting for several hours. The direct launch profile also requires more delta-V (thruster) than alternate transfer orbit (GTO) – thruster that must be launched into orbit in addition to the customer’s payload. This requires the use of extremely large and / or efficient rockets, which is why SpaceX is launching the USSF-44 with Falcon Heavy instead of a much cheaper and simpler Falcon 9.
Unlike every other direct-to-GEO launch in history, however, Falcon Heavy Flight 4 will (hopefully) mark the first time a rocket launches a payload into geostationary orbit while recovering much of its first stage. . After take off, the Falcon Heavy B1064 and B1064 side boosters will attempt the very first dual-drone ship to land at sea, while the rocket’s custom center core will be intentionally depleted. According to CEO Elon Musk, that sacrificial central core The setup theoretically allows Falcon Heavy to achieve around 90% of its consumable performance while retrieving two otherwise reusable boosters.
From the appearance of the first USSF-44 side booster in Louisiana, at least one other booster (probably the mission’s second side booster) has already been spotted at SpaceX McGregor’s development facilities in Texas and may have -being already completed its own series of static fire acceptance. trial. Given the three-month gap between the static fire of the first USSF-44 side booster and the appearance of a side booster in transport, it is possible that the booster spotted on January 26 was the second of two side boosters to ship east, but that’s unlikely given how many Falcon boosters hold up on the road.
Ultimately, assuming the static fire acceptance test of the second USSF-44 side booster went well, the only major Falcon Heavy-specific hardware SpaceX needs to ship from its headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif., Is the central core B1066. An upper stage and payload fairing will also need to pass acceptance testing and head to Florida, but both will likely be standard Falcon 9 hardware, minimizing uncertainty on small batches.
If SpaceX delivers the B1066 to McGregor within the next week or two, the central core should be ready to ship to Florida by March or April, leaving SpaceX two or three months to integrate, static fire, and prepare Falcon Heavy for its fourth launch. According to the latest official information from the US Army, the USSF-44 is expected to launch no earlier than late spring 2021 (NET), which likely implies late May or June.
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