Elon Musk's huge Falcon Heavy rocket set for launch

US entrepreneur Elon Musk will attempt to fly the world's most powerful rocket later from the Kennedy Space Center.
His Falcon Heavy vehicle is designed to have more than twice the lifting capacity of any existing launcher.
Because of the historic high failure rate of maiden flights, the rocket will only carry a dummy payload, however.
Mr Musk has decided this should be his old cherry-red Tesla sports car. A mannequin wearing a space suit will be strapped to the driving seat.
The entrepreneur says David Bowie's classic hit Space Oddity will be looping on the radio in the roadster as it is hurled into an elliptical orbit that stretches out to Mars' orbit around the Sun.
"[The car will] get about 400 million km away from Earth, and it'll be doing 11km/s," he told reporters in a briefing on Monday. "We estimate it will be in that orbit for several hundred million years, maybe in excess of a billion years."
Three cameras attached to the car would provide "epic views", Mr Musk added.
Thousands of spectators are expected to descend on Florida's Space Coast to witness the ascent, which could occur as early as 13:30 EST (18:30 GMT).
Mr Musk's rocket company, SpaceX, has given itself three hours to get the vehicle up on Tuesday. If technical glitches lead to a postponement, a second attempt will be made on Wednesday.
The Falcon Heavy is essentially three of SpaceX's workhorse Falcon 9 vehicles strapped together. But the triple-booster configuration has demanded a number of specific alterations, including a strengthening of the central core booster.
The 27 Merlin engines at the base of the rocket should be capable of generating almost 23,000 kilonewtons of thrust - slightly more than double that of the world's current most powerful rocket, the Delta IV Heavy, which is operated by US competitor United Launch Alliance.
The 70m-tall Falcon Heavy is designed to put up to a maximum of 64 tonnes in low-Earth orbit. That is like putting five London double-decker buses in space.
In reality, however, the Heavy would rarely be asked to raise so much because SpaceX intends to land the rocket's boosters back on Earth after launch and the fuel required to do this necessarily negates some performance. But the rocket's immense thrust does open up some fascinating new possibilities. These include:
  • much bigger satellites for use by US intelligence and the military. The scale of these satellites is limited by current rocket performance.
  • large batches of satellites, such as those for Mr Musk's proposed constellation of thousands of spacecraft to deliver broadband across the globe.
  • bigger, more capable robots to go to the surface of Mars, or to visit the outer planets such as Jupiter and Saturn, and their moons.
  • putting up huge telescopes. Hubble's successor, the James Webb telescope, is having to be folded origami-like for its launch in 2019
At the moment, the Falcon Heavy only has a handful of bookings on its manifest.
Two of these are for large telecommunications satellites that must be thrown up into a geostationary orbit some 36,000km above the Earth.
"These satellites are over six tonnes, knowing that the capacity of the rocket is eight tonnes to geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) - if it is fully reused," Rachel Villain, from the leading space consultancy Euroconsult, told BBC News.
"So, obviously, the objective must be to fully re-use the rocket, otherwise the capacity to GTO is 20 tonnes which is a lot to fill."
She added: "The main targets are possibly the US government and those proprietary constellations. And when I say US government, I mean both beyond Earth orbit (Nasa) and the US Department of Defence, because SpaceX is now a recognised supplier to the DoD for classified and non-classified missions."
The 70m-tall Falcon Heavy is designed to put up to a maximum of 64 tonnes in low-Earth orbit. That is like putting five London double-decker buses in space.
In reality, however, the Heavy would rarely be asked to raise so much because SpaceX intends to land the rocket's boosters back on Earth after launch and the fuel required to do this necessarily negates some performance. But the rocket's immense thrust does open up some fascinating new possibilities. These include:
  • much bigger satellites for use by US intelligence and the military. The scale of these satellites is limited by current rocket performance.
  • large batches of satellites, such as those for Mr Musk's proposed constellation of thousands of spacecraft to deliver broadband across the globe.
  • bigger, more capable robots to go to the surface of Mars, or to visit the outer planets such as Jupiter and Saturn, and their moons.
  • putting up huge telescopes. Hubble's successor, the James Webb telescope, is having to be folded origami-like for its launch in 2019
At the moment, the Falcon Heavy only has a handful of bookings on its manifest.
Two of these are for large telecommunications satellites that must be thrown up into a geostationary orbit some 36,000km above the Earth.
"These satellites are over six tonnes, knowing that the capacity of the rocket is eight tonnes to geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) - if it is fully reused," Rachel Villain, from the leading space consultancy Euroconsult, told BBC News.
"So, obviously, the objective must be to fully re-use the rocket, otherwise the capacity to GTO is 20 tonnes which is a lot to fill."
She added: "The main targets are possibly the US government and those proprietary constellations. And when I say US government, I mean both beyond Earth orbit (Nasa) and the US Department of Defence, because SpaceX is now a recognised supplier to the DoD for classified and non-classified missions."
Mr Musk has emphasised the difficulties in getting the Falcon Heavy ready for its maiden outing.
His formal announcement of the project was in 2011, with a first flight planned for perhaps 2013. Five years later, the entrepreneur concedes the chances are significant.
"If it goes wrong, hopefully it goes wrong far into the mission, so at least we learn as much as possible along the way," he said.
"I'll consider it a win if it just clears the pad and doesn't blow the pad to smithereens. That's 4,000,000lbs of TNT equivalent. There's probably not going to be much left if that thing lets loose."
Getting all 27 engines to light in unison and control them during the first phase of ascent is not straightforward.
The Soviets tried to ignite 30 engines on the first stage of their ill-fated Moon rocket, the N1, and never got to orbit. Mr Musk has a future rocket under development he calls the BFR. This will feature 31 first-stage engines
My response:
Audience: This article is directed to those who are interested in space exploration and technology all around the world. This article's primary purpose is to flex and show what humans are capable of and how far we have come along with letting anyone know who wants to watch the live stream of the historic launch
Bias: This article is clearly biased towards space travel and in support of Elon Musk and what he has been doing in the world. The article is also biased towards the west being better and making bigger and better inventions. The article is also biased in believing that nothing will go wrong.
Opinion: There is a part of me which wonders how productive Musk has been and the feasibility of his new inventions. I especially wonder with the whole "Launching his Car into Space" if this is really a revolutionary advancement or if he is just flexing and showing what he is capable of. There is another part of me which starts wondering about the possibilities of this system and what it could mean for space travel in the future. Lastly, the odds given for likelihood of failure are too high for me too feel comfortable. That may not mean anything, but that is just how I feel.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-42950957

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