How does it feel to have the world's most powerful rocket in operation hibernating in
your storage facilities for three good years?
SpaceX can tell you, as its mighty Falcon Heavy rocket has been chilling for years at
a time now!
However, the story is about to change, as the beastly launch rocket is about
to roar to life again!
Come June 2022, SpaceX will fire up the Super Heavy again
as it will be launching to orbit!
What payload is the rocket launching, who is the client,
and what is Elon Musk's SpaceX doing to ensure the launch goes as smoothly as possible?
The last flight of SpaceX's Super Heavy occurred in June 2019, making it exactly three
years since the powerful rocket went to space.
The rocket's maiden flight took place on February 6th, 2018, when it lifted off from
NASA's historic Kennedy Space Center (KSC) Pad 39A launch complex.
That launch catapulted it into the position of the largest,
heaviest, and most powerful active launch vehicle in the world.
It also became the third most powerful liquid rocket ever launched,
meaning it was rubbing shoulders with the likes of NASA's Saturn V Moon rocket and the
Soviet Union's ill-fated N-1 and Energia.
The next flight occurred after a 14-month wait when an upgraded Block 5 version of
Falcon Heavy completed another launch in April the following year.
The next flight did not have to wait as long because the Falcon
Heavy was back at it in June 2019, when it completed its first-ever mission for paying
customers.
The launch also certified the Super Heavy for launching high-value military
payloads for the US Air Force.
The complete silence from the Super Heavy after this launch has been so loud it is as
deafening as the noise made by the last launch.
What has followed is the opposite of what every fan of SpaceX expected.
Even a year before the last launch, SpaceX was
already scheduled to launch the US Air Force's AFSPC-52, later renamed USSF-52,
mission in September 2020.
However, by June 2019, it had become known that the
USSF-44 mission would skip over USSF-52 to become SpaceX's next Falcon Heavy
launch.
This was expected no later than late 2020.
But things would change by September 2020, when the USSF-44 mission was
postponed to February 2021.
When February 2021 came, the US military was signing a different tune and pushed
USSF-44 to no earlier than October 2021.
And by October 2021, the US military had once again delayed USSF-44 to early 2022 and
USSF-52 to the second quarter of 2022!
What exactly was responsible for the delays?
While it is clear that SpaceX is not to blame, the US Air Force is a unique client
as it doesn't have to reveal its inner workings.
It has not publicly admitted to the delays directly, but it has hinted the spacecraft
to be launched was the cause.
In fact, the military has stopped talking about its launch
schedule in public altogether.
However, it is not only the military that has postponed launches.
SpaceX's private customer, Viasat, has also been pushing the
first of its three launches of the next- generation ViaSat-3 communications satellites.
It is a direct launch to geostationary orbit that should have taken place in the
second quarter of 2022 to the third quarter.
What all these delays have achieved is a jam-packed launch schedule for the rest of the
year for the Super Heavy.
However, other launches have been lined up for the most
powerful rocket in operation, as you shall see in this video.
For instance, SpaceX has become the only contender to launch what would be the most
significant telescope launch in the next decade.
This is the NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which is the agency's
next most expensive space telescope after the James Webb.
The CEO of United Launch Alliance, Tony Bruno, has stated that
his company, SpaceX's primary rival, would not even be in the running for the contract.
The planned space telescope is similar mechanically to the iconic and aging Hubble
space telescope, but it has the advantage of using the latest electronics and sensor
technology, which have dramatically improved.
Thanks to this, NASA has been able to pack instruments capable of simultaneously
imaging 100 times the field of view HST is capable of into a similar package!
The NGRST is meant to complement the JWST, which is in the process of being
configured and tested.
It will weigh at least 4.2 tons or 9250 pounds and will operate at
the L2 Sun-Earth Lagrange point.
This is hundreds of thousands of miles from the
Earth.
Due to the long-distance, only large American rockets are in consideration for the
4.3 billion dollars launch.
NASA is now working towards a May 2027 launch and is rapidly concluding the
preparatory stages.
You may wonder why Falcon Heavy is getting the launch contract instead of SpaceX's
more powerful Starship or Blue Origin's New Glenn.
That is apparently due to a NASA rule that only rockets that have been certified
at the time of awarding a contract can compete for a high value spacecraft launch.
So even though the Starship will be ready well before 2027 and may even reduce the cost,
it is disqualified from the bidding process.
Sensitive spacecraft like the NGRST and JWST have to know their launch vehicle well
in advance as it is usually a factor in its design.
You will recall the JWST had to be designed to fold multiple parts so that it
could fit onto the Ariane 5 rocket last year.
Meanwhile, while the Falcon Heavy rocket has been in hibernation mode, SpaceX has
been borrowing its boosters for use in Falcon 9 launches.
For example, Booster B1052, which was part of Falcon Heavy's Block 5's
launch debut, emerged from storage about 30 months later in December 2021 to take part
in a Falcon 9 launch.
A month and a half later, on January 31st, Falcon 9 B1052 debuted with the flawless
launch of Italy's CSG-2 Earth observation satellite.
It became the first SpaceX booster of any kind to complete three back-to-back 'return-to-launch-site'
landings.
It completed another flight, its fourth, in less than six
weeks later in a Starlink satellite launch.
Early last month, another spacecraft meant as a payload on the Falcon Heavy arrived at
Cape Canaveral in preparation for a launch.
This is Psyche, a scientific mission that is
destined to travel hundreds of millions of miles from Earth.
Its mission is to explore an asteroid for which the spacecraft is named.
NASA is interested in the asteroid because it is believed to be almost entirely metallic.
Psyche is the first time NASA will opt for the
Falcon Heavy for a launch and take advantage of its far superior performance and cost-
saving.
The 2600 kg or 5700 pounds spacecraft was assembled at the JET Propulsion
Laboratory in California.
SpaceX will use an entirely new Falcon Heavy for the launch,
meaning all three boosters, upper stage, and fairing, have never been used before.
Also, the center booster will be sacrificed, as SpaceX plans to do with the USSF-44
launch.
However, the Psyche launch has suffered a delay despite arriving ahead of schedule
and being the first Falcon Heavy payload to make it to Kennedy Space Center since
2019.
NASA did reveal the cause of the delay, and it was due to an issue discovered
during software testing.
However, the speed at which NASA agreed to postpone the
launch by seven weeks may suggest additional problems like those related to the
hardware.
As it stands, the USSF-67 is the only mission that has not been postponed in a year, at
least not yet.
It is still on track for a second-half launch in 2022.
USSF-44 is now delayed indefinitely, while USSF-52 is now
looking at an October launch.
Viasat mentioned earlier is now looking like a last-quarter
launch.
This means SpaceX is warehousing nine Falcon Heavy boosters.
Meanwhile, SpaceX has been confirmed as the launch partner for Hughes' record-
breaking satellite.
This will be the 10th launch scheduled for the Falcon Heavy.
The satellite is named Jupiter 3 and was built
by Maxar.
It weighs about 9.2 metric tons or 20300 pounds during liftoff.
At that weight, Jupiter-3 will become the largest commercial
geostationary satellite ever launched by 30 percent wet mass.
Barring the launch of secret military spacecraft, Jupiter-3 looks set to become the
heaviest spacecraft of any kind to reach geostationary orbit 35,785 km or 22,236 miles
above Earth's surface.
It may also have the heaviest dry mass of any spacecraft to
reach GEO, meaning that the actual hardware it will use to fill its role as a
communications hub will also be exceptionally large and powerful.
Jupiter-3 will break the record by delivering a maximum bandwidth
of 500 gigabits per second.
Hughes had earlier stated that the satellite was on track to launch in the fourth quarter
of 2022.
However, a delay now means the launch is no earlier than early 2023.
Let's hear what you think of SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket in the comment section
below