A Closer Look At the HUGE LAUNCH of 2022 SpaceX's Monster Falcon Heavy awaken

The 2018 awe-inspiring launch made Falcon Heavy the world's most powerful operational rocket, and at the same time, it made SpaceX the pride of the United States of America, making Russia, China, and Europe envious. Especially after more than four years of development, this beast will come back and rock the world with a series of missions in 2022. But is it really worth the hype? Well, let's find out in today's episode of Great SpaceX. What an extraordinary claim! According to SpaceX's website, the Falcon Heavy is 70 meters tall and can lift nearly 64 metric tons of payload to low-Earth orbit, about twice the payload capacity of its closest competitor, United Launch Alliance's Delta IV Heavy. The rocket has two stages. The first stage has three engine cores. The center core is flanked and supported by two boosters. Each core is equivalent to the first stage of a Falcon 9 rocket and houses nine engines. The boosters separate after liftoff and land upright back on Earth, possibly to be used again. Meanwhile, the heavier center core aims for a drone ship, carrying its payload in the second stage. The 27 engines on the first stage of Falcon Heavy, working together, are capable of more than 5 million pound-force, or 22,819 kilonewtons, of thrust at liftoff, the same force as about 18 747 aircraft at full power. That's right, Falcon Heavy is as powerful as 18 747 aircraft at full power. Just looking at that number makes me dizzy. While being so powerful before making its fateful flight in 2018, this rocket struggled with many difficulties. Musk first announced the Falcon Heavy in 2011. At the time, he said the rocket would carry 53 tons of cargo to orbit, twice the capacity of the Space Shuttle. Musk also predicted the first Falcon Heavy flight would come in 2013. As is common in spaceflight, however, that date was pushed back several years during development. There were two catastrophic failures of the Falcon 9 rocket in 2015 and 2016. Flights were suspended both times while the cause of the failures was investigated, and that likely contributed to pushing back the timeline of the Falcon Heavy. SpaceX completed a static fire test of the Falcon Heavy's center core in May of 2017. By September of that year, all three boosters planned for the first flight completed static testing. The Falcon Heavy rocket lifted off for the first time on February 6, 2018, from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, using Launch Complex 39A, the pad that was used to host moonbound Apollo astronauts and Space Shuttle crews. The rocket launched a red Tesla Roadster and a space-suited mannequin called Starman in an orbit around the sun that could extend past Mars. An estimated 100,000 spectators crowded the area's beaches and roadways to watch the rocket launch. Millions more watched a livestream showing the launch and events afterward. And just to let you know, that Roadster is still out there, a literal car cruising out in our solar system. It's a bit crazy, but still really amazing. Only Elon Musk can create these amazing scenes. It sounds like a fantasy, but I think it would be great if one day, NASA's James Webb and the Tesla Roadster run into each other in the vast universe, albeit hopefully they don't collide. And it would be great if a $10 billion machine could capture a few moments of the first and only flying car in our solar system. The awe-inspiring launch made Falcon Heavy the world's most powerful operational rocket and the third-highest-capacity launch vehicle ever to reach orbit, following NASA's Saturn V rocket and Russia's Inergia rocket, which are no longer operational. In addition, the remarkable flight also demonstrates that a three-core rocket can reliably launch a heavy payload to space. That's why nowhere did this launch echo as powerfully as in Russia. The private US company once again created a technical feat on which the Russian space industry has given up, the successful launch of a rocket with as many as 27 engines. When SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket debuted, China's aerospace community was mostly envious as their equivalent rocket, the Long March 9 rocket, speculated to be a copy of SpaceX's Falcon Heavy, would not be ready for another decade. Global Times said that the Falcon Heavy rocket has totally crushed all other current rockets in the world. One story in state media observed that, to put it more bluntly this time, the Americans showed us Chinese with pure power why they are still the strongest country in the world. Notably, its launch cost is so cheap, just $90 million per time. The Delta IV Heavy, meanwhile, can launch 32 tons into orbit and cost between $300-500 million per flight. It could be said that SpaceX's Falcon Heavy is one of the best choices for cost savings. A year after the successful demo flight, SpaceX had signed five commercial contracts worth $500-750 million, meaning that it had managed to cover the development cost of the rocket. The second flight, which is also a first for commercial flights, occurred on the 11th of April 2019, launching Air Obsat 6A, with all three boosters landing successfully for the first time. The third flight occurred on the 25th of June 2019, launching the STP-2, or the Department of Defense's Space Test Program's, payload. The payload was composed of 25 small spacecraft, and this is also the last launch of the Falcon Heavy monster since then. That begs the question, why? Why doesn't Falcon Heavy fly much despite possessing such great power? The first reason belongs to the market factor, especially the supply and demand issues of satellites. The Falcon Heavy is not only a heavy-lift vehicle capable of carrying satellites up to 23 tons into low-Earth orbit, but also being reusable. That makes it the most economical heavy-lift rocket in the market. Even designing with an impressive amount of capacity like that, they still can't take advantage of it as the weight of most satellites typically is in the range between 2 and 8 tons, making smaller rockets like the Falcon 9 far more suitable. Furthermore, Falcon 9's launch cost is also cheaper than Falcon Heavy. Thus, Operational Geostationary Transfer Orbit missions for Intelsat and Imarsat, which were planned for late 2017, were moved from Falcon Heavy to the Falcon 9 full-thrust rocket version as it had become powerful enough to lift those heavy payloads in its expendable configuration. Another factor affecting flight schedules is the development of Starship, SpaceX's next-generation spacecraft. As of 2020, Elon Musk said Starship is SpaceX's top priority. SpaceX eventually wants to replace both Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy with Starship, which should reduce costs by unifying its production lines and offering full reusability. But in the end, SpaceX can't give up its most powerful ship that has flown successfully ever. After nearly three years of absence, the monster has awakened and is about to overwhelm the world with its power. SpaceX, with Falcon Heavy rocket-certified for even the most risk-averse NASA LSP or Launch Service Program missions, defeated both the famed duo ULA's Delta IV Heavy and Atlas V, as well as Blue Origin's or other companies' rockets to become the only U.S. launch provider with rockets that are both available for future NASA launch and certified to launch and compete for them. In just the last two years, SpaceX has won contracts to launch NASA's Psyche Asteroid Explorer on August 2022, Viper Moon Rover in Q4 of 2023, GOES-U Weather Satellites Q2 of 2024, Europa Clipper in Q4 of 2024, and the PPE and Halo modules of the Gateway Lunar Space Station in Q4 of 2024. Besides that, this rocket is likely to launch the Roman Space Telescope, the second most expensive NASA spacecraft launched this decade after ULA skips the competition. And don't forget, national security missions for the U.S. Space Force have been delayed since last year. The first one is USSF-44, followed by 52 and 67, which is the last one. All three of these missions are expected to be done before this year's end. But it's a little bit of a pity that there are no target launch dates that have been announced yet so far. Wait, move that aside. There is a piece of good news we want to share with you. SpaceX has been spotted transporting a Falcon Heavy booster through NASA's Kennedy Space Center facilities on March 9th. While it's not entirely clear where the Falcon Heavy's center core came from, it offered a slight glimpse behind the scenes amid an unending series of launches of the 2022 will be a busy year for Falcon Heavy and we're still waiting for the first comeback flight of it. And that's it for today's episode. If you enjoy what my team and I are doing and would like to continue supporting us in a huge way, you can become a patron through our Patreon link in the description below. And don't forget to tell us what you thought about today's content. Everyone's support motivates us to continue delivering quality content and to always improve. And as a quick note, if you have advertising needs, you can contact us directly via email. Anyways, this is Kevin with GreatSpaceX and my team and I will see you next time.