On the 6th of February 2018, the Falcon Heavy lifted off from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center.
It was one of the most highly anticipated rocket launches in recent history,
showing that a new era of reusable rockets had arrived.
The mission was successful and images of Starman in his Roadster caught the world's attention.
So why has it taken so long for the Falcon Heavy to fly again?
In this video we’re going to look at why it took so long for the
Falcon Heavy to fly in the first place.
We’re also going to look at why it doesn’t have many missions lined up and what the future
holds for the rocket.
In 2011, SpaceX unveiled their plans for the Falcon Heavy and announced that the first
test flight was expected to take place in 2013.
However, strapping three Falcon 9’s together started to prove more difficult than expected
and with two failures in 2015 and 2016, SpaceX had to shift their attention to improving
the reliability of the Falcon 9.
This caused major delays in the development of the Falcon Heavy.
On top of that, SpaceX were also planning to verify the Falcon Heavy for crewed flights.
However it became increasingly clear that this would take much longer than expected
and with more time and money going into Starship's development,
they decided to cancel the idea of flying humans on the Falcon Heavy.
After fixing the issues that plagued the Falcon 9, SpaceX had a flawless year in 2017, and
at the start of 2018, the Falcon Heavy was rolled out of its hangar, ready for its first test flight.
Thousands of people gathered around the Cape and millions of people around the world watched online
as the Falcon Heavy soared into the sky.
After demonstrating that the Falcon Heavy could fly and deliver payloads successfully,
it looked like it was ready to start launching satellites for its first customers.
This included the Arabsat communications satellite as well as the US military, who had arranged
to launch their satellites on the Falcon Heavy way back in 2012.
These launches were originally scheduled just a few months after the initial test flight,
but with an effort being made to launch the upgraded Block 5 Falcon 9, SpaceX once again
fell behind with the Falcon Heavy.
Although the Falcon Heavy might not have flown as many times as we would have liked by now,
it’s important to point out that SpaceX have spoiled us with an unprecedented number
of launches over the last few years.
In 2018 alone, SpaceX achieved 20 successful launches of the Falcon 9, whilst other rockets
like the Ariane, Atlas and Delta only managed between 3 and 6 launches.
One of the main reasons that the Falcon Heavy doesn’t have many missions lined up is down
to the supply and demand of satellites.
The Falcon Heavy is a heavy lift vehicle, capable of carrying satellites of up to 23
tonnes into lower Earth orbit.
Most importantly, it’s able to do this whilst being reusable.
Making it the most affordable heavy lift rocket on the market.
While this is an impressive amount of capability, the majority of satellites typically have
a mass between 2 and 8 tonnes, making smaller rockets like the Falcon 9 far more suitable.
The rise in the small satellite market has allowed private company Rocketlab to thrive
with their Electron rocket.
This small rocket is able to launch payloads for less than $5 million and due to the demand
for rockets like this, it has a busy schedule lined up for 2019.
Although there are only a handful of missions currently lined up for the Falcon Heavy,
its future is still very exciting.
This year, SpaceX will launch the Falcon Heavy carrying the Arabsat communication satellite.
What makes this even more exciting is that SpaceX plan to land all three boosters and
reuse them for the next Falcon Heavy mission just 8 weeks later.
This mission will be carrying 25 experimental satellites for the US Military
and if all goes well, this would break SpaceX’s previous turnaround record of 10 weeks.
So although it has taken a while for the Falcon Heavy to fly again, we can appreciate the
enormous amount of engineering that has gone into making one of the most iconic rockets
ever made.