![]() The shiniest and newest looking SpaceX Falcon 9 I’ve seen in a long while! /evzMBopYwh- Herrea MaA new Falcon Heavy center core returns to a storage hangar after launch delays. It remains to be seen which mission will launch first. To leave the upper stage with enough propellant for such a challenging task, SpaceX will intentionally expend one of Falcon Heavy’s three boosters during each launch. The rocket’s upper stage will need to survive a roughly six-hour coast in space and a trip through Earth’s radiation belts before firing up for a long burn to circularize its orbit around 36,000 kilometers (~22,300 mi) above the planet’s surface. Both sources also agree that two additional missions (ViaSat-3 and USSF-67) could also launch this year.įor USSF-44 and ViaSat-3, Falcon Heavy will launch both sets of payloads directly into geostationary orbit – a type of mission SpaceX has never attempted. ![]() Next Spaceflight, another reliable primary source, concurs. Spaceflight Now, a reliable source of launch schedules, recently updated its Launch Schedule to move Falcon Heavy’s USSF-44 mission up from late 2022 or 2023 to October 2022. It’s possible that Falcon Heavy could end its launch hiatus and kick off that six-mission streak in the very near future. This picture inspired by the great /ATuaxHiM4u- Tom Ochinero September 13, 2022 Launcher panel! Great to be back in Paris with my industry colleagues. Speaking on a panel at the 2022 World Satellite Business Week, SpaceX Vice President of Commercial Sales Tom Ochinero told the audience that the company has six Falcon Heavy launches scheduled in the next 12 months. SpaceX has had no issues building and qualifying a huge amount of Falcon Heavy hardware for those missions, but the lack of payloads ready to fly has forced the company to find places to store all seven boosters – more than a third of its fleet – indefinitely. That includes two commercial satellite launches and three launches for the US military, but NASA (directly and indirectly) is by far SpaceX’s most eager Falcon Heavy customer with six firm launches booked and options for another two.įor years, however, all supposedly near-term Falcon Heavy launches have been more or less indefinitely delayed by payload problems. Includes 6 Falcon Heavy launches in next 12 months.- Jeff Foust September 13, 2022Ĭontrary to the connotations such a long gap between launches might evoke, Falcon Heavy’s manifest has grown at a respectable rate and currently sits at 11 launches. SpaceX’s Tom Ochinero: trying to get to a little over 60 launches this year, and 100 next year. 39 months later, it’s still hard to say when Falcon Heavy will finally launch for the fourth time. Such a quick turnaround raised hopes, but that optimism was unfortunately unfounded. Less than three months later, Falcon Heavy completed its third launch – a demonstration mission for the US Air Force. That April 2019 launch marked the rocket’s first commercial mission and sent a large communications satellite into an extra-energetic geostationary transfer orbit. In just a small taste of things to come, Falcon Heavy’s second launch followed 14 months later. ![]() The debut was nearly flawless and only marred by the loss of one of the rocket’s three first-stage boosters, which failed to touch down on a drone ship stationed in the Atlantic Ocean. ![]() A SpaceX sales executive predicts that the company will launch Falcon Heavy, currently the most powerful operational rocket in the world, up to six times in the next 12 months.įollowing years of delays and anticipation as SpaceX waited for the right moment to move forward with the massive rocket, Falcon Heavy debuted in February 2018 by launching CEO Elon Musk’s original Tesla Roadster into interplanetary space. ![]()
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