Roger Hanson: The promise of the Heavy Falcon

Thursday, 15 February 2018

OPINION: On February 6, 2018 SpaceX, a private company, launched its Falcon Heavy rocket, comprising three sections (cores), each with nine Merlin-D1 rocket engines.

SpaceX's boss, Elon Musk, gave the mission only a 50/50 chance of success and for that reason did not put a commercial cargo on board, instead the rocket was used to carry his 2008 Tesla sports car into space and send it on a long orbit around the sun – a stunt which caught the attention of the world's press.

The launch was important for two reasons. Firstly, if we are going to extend our reach into space, for example by setting up a manned station on the Moon or conducting manned missions to Mars, we will need to launch a huge amount of equipment and supplies into space. Missions such as these, as well as missions to transport larger and multiple satellites into orbit are going to need rockets that can carry big payloads.

Falcon Heavy can lift 64 tonnes to Low Earth Orbit (LEO), making it the fourth heaviest launch ever and more than twice as powerful than its operational competitors. LEO is an altitude less than 2,000kms. The heaviest launch ever was NASA's Saturn V moon rocket which could lift 130 tonnes.

The second reason Falcon Heavy is important is its ability to bring its three rocket sections back to Earth and land them on a launch pad or sea-based barge – enabling the rockets to be reused.

This dramatically cuts the cost per kilogramme to take a cargo into space. The launch cost is about US$100 million compared with as much as US$400 million for its Delta IV Heavy rival.

Lifting tonnes of spacecraft into space is a magnificent and complex achievement however in some respects the technology hasn't moved on very much since the 1960s.

It isn't a subtle process, we still have to rely on huge quantities of highly flammable, toxic and reactive rocket fuels to provide the propellent to thrust these vehicles upwards with sufficient acceleration to overcome the pull of Earth's gravity.

In the case of Falcon Heavy, the paying load, the reason for the mission, is a maximum 64 tonnes, but the rocket itself and the enormous fuel load, including the fuel required to decelerate the cores and return them to Earth, weighs 1,400 tonnes.

We are still in the early stages of making rocket launches, such as Falcon Heavy, routine. Of the three rocket cores that were supposed to return to Earth, two did so spectacularly by landing on a terrestrial launch pad, but the third which was supposed to land on a barge, failed and crashed into the ocean.

Experts on manned missions to Mars, such as retired NASA scientist Robert Zubrin, estimate that a two-year expedition to Mars will require 1,200 tonnes of equipment and supplies – that is 19 Falcon Heavy launches, just to put the equipment in LEO. With this in mind there is clearly a market for even bigger rockets.

SpaceX say they will start construction on their 150-tonne payload BFR (Big Falcon Rocket) this year. NASA are developing their own super-heavy-lift rockets as part of their Space Launch System (SLS) project. The project is having funding difficulties and experiencing delays but the payload goal is 130 tonnes.

Time magazine reports that Elon Musk has left a trail of many failed or unattainable promises such as saying he would send two paying astronauts around the Moon by 2018 and SpaceX would begin colonising Mars by 2024 – the latter, particularly, is pie in the sky. In the intoxicating glare of public adulation, Musk has to be careful not to overstretch himself.

A warning was received this week when it was announced that Tesla cars, of which he is CEO, made a record loss of US$675 million in the last three months of 2017.

Analysts say that with the huge budgets of General Motors and BMW now being directed at electric car research, Tesla could soon become an also-ran. Having said that, one has to admire the vision and enthusiasm of entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk, there is no denying he has achieved some amazing technological firsts, but that doesn't mean he is infallible.