What SpaceX Just Did With Falcon Heavy Shocked Whole Industry!

What if SpaceX Falcon Heavy didn't exist? Would NASA still boast that its Space Launch System is the world's most powerful rocket at a reasonable cost? Would ULA still settle down in the old-style rockets which cost rip-off prices? Fortunately, those didn't happen thanks to the presence of Falcon Heavy. Especially can't help but mention a vital achievement that SpaceX has already made on this vehicle. Now the government can save a lot of tax dollars on significant projects, while the age-old companies get motivated to grow. Furthermore, this is also a great motivation for the unicorns in rocketry to rise strongly in the 21st century space race. Find out everything in today's episode of TechMap. But before we begin, don't forget to subscribe to the channel to stay updated with the latest space news. It's not by chance a new entrant like SpaceX Falcon Heavy can easily beat the old guards like ULA's Delta IV Heavy, Vulcan Centaur, and NASA's Space Launch System. The secret weapon here is the capability to meet the technical requirements for the national significant programs, while offering a much lower cost per launch. When mentioning the price, can't help but mention the reusability, the holy grail that SpaceX has been chasing. Unlike the fully reusable Starship, Falcon Heavy jettisons its second stage after stage separation as its brother Falcon 9, but it also throws its center core to receive additional power. It's due to its main destination tending to be a distant location like Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit, GTO, where its payload performance is reduced by the reusable technology. When recovering all three booster cores, the GTO payload is 8 tons. If only the two outside cores are recovered while the center core is expended, the GTO payload would be doubled. The two only things they try to recover are both side boosters and a part that fewer people mention, fairing. The fairing is located on the upper part of the rocket and consists of two half-shells made of carbon composite material that split in space. The fairing is jettisoned approximately three minutes into the flight and is recovered by SpaceX for the future mission. It's safe to say that for many rocket companies, the fairing after the launch is the dead mass, so they don't try to waste time and money to take it back. Yet, SpaceX is so different. In 2019, amid the fanfare of the Falcon Heavy successfully embarking on its second ever trip to space, Elon Musk announced that his company was able to recover both fairing halves of the mega rocket for the first time. In his tweet, Musk confirmed that both fairing halves were recovered from the Atlantic Ocean undamaged. The next step is to put the fairings to work again on a Falcon 9 rocket that would blast additional Starlink satellites into orbit, scheduled for later that year. Each pair of fairings is worth six million dollars, one-tenth of Falcon 9's cost per launch, and one-sixteenth of the cost of Falcon Heavy. That means by reusing this small but important component, SpaceX can save millions of dollars for each launch. SpaceX has reflown fairing halves nearly 400 times, on both Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, with some being reflown for 11 or more times. However, this leads to a question. Why does SpaceX recover the fairing, but the second stage, even though the second stage is twice as expensive as the fairing? Fairings separate at a much lower altitude and velocity than the second stage would have to recover from. The fairings are also very light compared to their surface area, and therefore have far more drag, allowing for a gentler descent, comparatively. Second stage recovery was looked at, but the additional recovery hardware would reduce available payload by the same mass. 500 kilograms of hardware to recover reduces max payload by 500 kilograms, and that's before accounting for the fuel needed to deorbit. At the end of the day, recovery of a Falcon upper stage was not going to save enough money to make it worth the performance losses and development cost, especially with Starship comparatively right around the corner. At the moment, SpaceX is the only company recovering and reusing fairings. The company recovers its fairing halves with parachutes before refurbishment and reuse. Following SpaceX, Beyond Gravity is proposing an alternative to this concept. This Zurich-based is the preferred supplier of structures for all types of launch vehicles, including the European Ariane and Vega rockets. The company's concept would see the rocket's payload bay and second stage encased in the vehicle's fairing, meaning the payload fairing is connected to the first stage. When ready, the fairing's forward section would split in two, allowing the rocket's second stage to continue its mission. The fairing halves would then close and would return to Earth with the stage. So now it's unclear about the status of its reusable fairing development efforts. The advantage of this design is not require much effort to fish the fairing from the sea. The fairing also doesn't need a parachute. It will make a landing together with the first stage, thus improving reusability and reducing recovery costs. Also, they would not need to be salt waterproof. However, its disadvantage is that it adds weight and even size to the first stage. That increased weight includes mechanics and control to open and close. Therefore, it would be more suitable for medium and small lift launch vehicles, demanding smaller fairing sizes. Furthermore, if you want to land with these heavy payload fairings attached, you will need additional fuel to slow down your increased mass and possibly stronger legs to survive the landing with your increased mass. So, how about you? Do you agree with my words? Share your thoughts. Thanks to the optimal design and affordability, the Falcon Heavy has become a bright candidate for important governmental missions. Nevertheless, before reaching its peak today, SpaceX's workhorse rocket has had a rocky start. When NASA's SLS was envisioned in 2010, it was billed as the world's largest and most powerful rocket. In addition to being extremely cheap and quick to build due to its extensive use of existing parts, such as engines and boosters from the Space Shuttle program. Back then, the Falcon Heavy was simply an idea. The first attempt at a heavy orbital vehicle made by SpaceX and roughly comparable in its payload capacity to the SLS. Then, in 2014, NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden uttered a quote that would go on to be ridiculed ever since. Let's be very honest. We don't have a commercially available heavy lift vehicle. The Falcon 9 Heavy may someday come about. It's on the drawing board right now. SLS is real. Two years later, in 2016, Bolden said he still did not believe commercial companies were up to the task. If you talk about launch vehicles, we believe our responsibility to the nation is to take care of things that normal people cannot do or don't want to do, like large launch vehicles, Bolden said. I'm not a big fan of commercial investment in large launch vehicles just yet. Ironically, NASA and the SLS prime contractor Boeing no longer compete with the Falcon Heavy. SpaceX defeated these two competitors, and Falcon Heavy was launched in 2018. Meanwhile, it took four years for SLS to take off. Worse, this launch burned to a total of $23.8 billion in nominal dollars. Since then, Bolden appears to have changed his mind. SLS will go away, he said. It could go during a Biden administration, or a next Trump administration. Because at some point, commercial entities are going to catch up. They are really going to build a heavy lift launch vehicle, sort of like SLS, that they will be able to fly for a much cheaper price than NASA can do SLS. That's just the way it works. Yes, spot on. Now, SLS who? SpaceX has exactly left NASA in the dust. Not only stopping at Falcon Heavy, but the company is going much further with its Starship rocket. This gigantic vehicle has been on its way towards its fourth test flight. In three previous tests, it showed the world its surreal performances, as well as state-of-the-art technologies. In parallel, Elon Musk also actively updated Starship's future plans, such as aiming to launch it three times a day, reducing the cost per launch to under $10 million, or upgrading it to larger and stronger versions. And that just about wraps it up for today's episode. Thank you, and we look forward to seeing you next time.