Falcon Super Heavy (speculation)

[Rockhem]

What do you guys think of a Falcon Super Heavy, a asparagus-staged rocket with 5 Falcon 9 v1.1 stages as the first stage, and then asparagus stage its way to a merlin vacuum engine.

I just thought this up, but is there even a market for payloads this large, and would it be possible to send large payloads to mars using this vehicle?

[astropapi1]

Asparagus staging isn't that easy IRL.

They'll have trouble with the crossfeeding boosters in the FHeavy.

[Rockhem]

If the Falcon Heavy succeeds and someone just happens to want to put ~100 metric tons into orbit i guess it could be a possibility

I know that fuel pumps are a absolute pain in real life, and i hope that the Falcon Heavy doesn't crash and burn.

[Nibb31]

There already isn't much of a market for Falcon Heavy. Nobody on the market has any 50t payloads to launch, except maybe the US Military.

Unless SLS is cancelled and NASA suddenly gets enough funding to want to go to Mars without it, there are hardly any payloads for it.

[Wesreidau]

Demand-side economics might suggest there has to be a demand for anything to be made, but that's a stagnant line of thinking. You're putting the cart before the horse. The horse pulls the cart. There isn't a market for the Falcon Heavy today and there wasn't a market for electricity in 1800. But the supply, even on paper, of a rocket that can launch that kind of mass economically will bring about a lot of inventive thought. Someone invented the battery before they invented the carbon arc lamp.

[hugix]

Most of the satellites being launched go into an Earth orbit albeit LEO or geosynchronous. And since technology has the tendency to become smaller as time progresses I reckon the need for super heavy launchers will be sparse in the future. It might be better to develop a launcher that is cheap and can send multiple lightweight payloads in orbit. I think the Antares rocket has a bigger market then a Falcon nine super heavy.

[Kryten]

Demand-side economics might suggest there has to be a demand for anything to be made, but that's a stagnant line of thinking. You're putting the cart before the horse. The horse pulls the cart. There isn't a market for the Falcon Heavy today and there wasn't a market for electricity in 1800. But the supply, even on paper, of a rocket that can launch that kind of mass economically will bring about a lot of inventive thought. Someone invented the battery before they invented the carbon arc lamp.

There is a market for the Falcon Heavy today; the GSO capabilities are in the same general region as the Ariane V, and GSO is where the vast majority of commercial satellites go. What there isn't a market for is the LEO capability, which is shown well enough by the fact that what you're suggesting would happen hasn't. In space launch terms, given the amount of lead time it takes to design and build satellites, Falcon Heavy is already here; people have put in contracts for it, designed payloads, and even completed a few by now. No-one has seriously suggested something that uses the LEO capability, not even people like Bigelow who think space hotels are a viable business model.

[Britpoint]

Surely the market for the hypothetical Falcon Super Heavy already exists in the form of the guy who would fund it: Elon Musk wants to go to Mars. He wants humanity to colonise Mars, and has already said that SpaceX exists to pursue that goal. I don't think he means to do this by propping up NASA as they build and fly the SLS; he wants to do it as cheaply, reliably and often as possible and he will want his company at the cutting edge of that - he's already working on plans for the MTV (Mars Transit Vehicle) and his current launch vehicles just wont cut the mustard when it comes to lifting that.

Now I don't see the FSH being a Kerbal-like Asparagus staging system; it'll probably just be a taller, more powerful Heavy. But I certainly expect it will happen, presuming there are no disasters that cripple SpaceX along the way.

[Faark]

I also would guess they continue with a FH that uses 4x symmetry insead of FH's 2x.

Btw, i'm pretty sure the "there might be a demand in the future" guy was not just talking about satellites around eath. Who knows what happens, maybe someone will actually create a moonbase within the lifetime of the Falcon. Or maybe sth totally different we just can't imagine, now. Having the tech to lift massive stuff into orbit could definitively open up some possibilities.

[Nibb31]

There is a market for the Falcon Heavy today; the GSO capabilities are in the same general region as the Ariane V, and GSO is where the vast majority of commercial satellites go. What there isn't a market for is the LEO capability, which is shown well enough by the fact that what you're suggesting would happen hasn't. In space launch terms, given the amount of lead time it takes to design and build satellites, Falcon Heavy is already here; people have put in contracts for it, designed payloads, and even completed a few by now. No-one has seriously suggested something that uses the LEO capability, not even people like Bigelow who think space hotels are a viable business model.

Ariane 5 is overpowered for its main mission of launching GEO sats. It has to launch two at a time, which lacks flexibility, and causes Arianespace to lose deals because customers have to wait for a second customer to show up. This is why Ariane 6 will be smaller. Also, the GEO market isn't growing because the main use for GEO comsats is satellite TV broadcast, which is getting a lot of competition from DSL broadband and 4G wireless these days. The trend is to replace older sats with smaller, cheaper, and higher bandwidth sats with a longer lifespan.

Demand-side economics might suggest there has to be a demand for anything to be made, but that's a stagnant line of thinking. You're putting the cart before the horse. The horse pulls the cart. There isn't a market for the Falcon Heavy today and there wasn't a market for electricity in 1800. But the supply, even on paper, of a rocket that can launch that kind of mass economically will bring about a lot of inventive thought. Someone invented the battery before they invented the carbon arc lamp.

"Build it and they will come" doesn't always work in the real world. If you open an airline to the middle of the desert, people won't queue up to buy tickets. There needs to be at least some kind of prospective market, and specifically for transportation services there needs to be a destination.

The payload capacity of rockets like Ariane or Proton hasn't been an incentive for larger commercial payloads to appear. Economy of scale means that most comsats nowadays use the same busses from 2 or 3 major suppliers (Boeing, LM, Astrium...), which are standardized to a specific size and purpose.

The only customers for large payloads are low volume institutional launches for either scientific or military payloads.

Surely the market for the hypothetical Falcon Super Heavy already exists in the form of the guy who would fund it: Elon Musk wants to go to Mars. He wants humanity to colonise Mars, and has already said that SpaceX exists to pursue that goal. I don't think he means to do this by propping up NASA as they build and fly the SLS; he wants to do it as cheaply, reliably and often as possible and he will want his company at the cutting edge of that - he's already working on plans for the MTV (Mars Transit Vehicle) and his current launch vehicles just wont cut the mustard when it comes to lifting that.

Elon still doesn't have unlimited funds. SpaceX is a launch service provider, like ULA or Arianespace, not a space program. They build rockets but they still need someone to pay for the stuff that goes on top. "Colonizing Mars" would cost hundreds of billions and there is no ROI for commercial investment.

I have no doubt that SpaceX will have an Super Heavy offering in its catalog, available in case a customer wants it, but I doubt that it will ever be needed.

Edited August 26, 2013 by Nibb31

[magnemoe]

Ariane 5 is overpowered for its main mission of launching GEO sats. It has to launch two at a time, which lacks flexibility, and causes Arianespace to lose deals because customers have to wait for a second customer to show up. This is why Ariane 6 will be smaller. Also, the GEO market isn't growing because the main use for GEO comsats is satellite TV broadcast, which is getting a lot of competition from DSL broadband and 4G wireless these days. The trend is to replace older sats with smaller, cheaper, and higher bandwidth sats with a longer lifespan.

Elon still doesn't have unlimited funds. SpaceX is a launch service provider, like ULA or Arianespace, not a space program. They build rockets but they still need someone to pay for the stuff that goes on top. "Colonizing Mars" would cost hundreds of billions and there is no ROI for commercial investment.

I have no doubt that SpaceX will have an Super Heavy offering in its catalog, available in case a customer wants it, but I doubt that it will ever be needed.

SpaceX has an FalconX on the roadmap powerpoint, its use an larger engine than the current so the normal version has a bit better capacity than the heavy, now you can make an heavy of it. this is power point rockets but probably the way they will go to increase capacity.

All current commercial launches has their profile based on current launch costs, it has the effect that making an satellite lighter is economical at pretty much any cost. Falcon heavy it self will not change this but an reusable version will. For most products categories, decreasing price to 1/4 will increase volume much more than 4 times.

New projects become economical and cutting weight is not as critical anymore.

[DaveofDefeat]

The space industry is looking more at reusable spacecraft rather then extreme payloads.

[jwenting]

my speculation is that it'll be cancelled. There's no immediate mission for it, so no positive ROI before the next shareholders' meeting, and there won't be such a mission before it is ready for production.

In fact, there's not any mission left for anything heavier than a firecracker by then, as even the resupply missions to ISS which might need a heavy load at times (if someone went crazy and decided to add a new module) will be over by then and ISS abandoned.

We've given up on space, apart from comsats and GPS like systems, and those are small, light weight, and not a lot of them are needed each year.

And with the increased use of fibre optics cables for long distance communications, even comsats are becoming less and less of a business.

[Nibb31]

All current commercial launches has their profile based on current launch costs, it has the effect that making an satellite lighter is economical at pretty much any cost. Falcon heavy it self will not change this but an reusable version will. For most products categories, decreasing price to 1/4 will increase volume much more than 4 times.

New projects become economical and cutting weight is not as critical anymore.

I don't see how reusable will decrease launch prices by 75%. The larger part of the cost of launching a rocket is in the infrastructure, the R&D, the personnel... The actual material for building new hardware is only a minor part of the cost. You still need to pay for the launch facilities and the people on the ground who handle all the launch activity, the testing, the integration, the admin overhead... Even a cost reduction of 20% seems optimistic, and that's just for the launch part of the space project, which usually includes development of a payload, ground stations, monitoring, etc...

[magnemoe]

I don't see how reusable will decrease launch prices by 75%. The larger part of the cost of launching a rocket is in the infrastructure, the R&D, the personnel... The actual material for building new hardware is only a minor part of the cost. You still need to pay for the launch facilities and the people on the ground who handle all the launch activity, the testing, the integration, the admin overhead... Even a cost reduction of 20% seems optimistic, and that's just for the launch part of the space project, which usually includes development of a payload, ground stations, monitoring, etc...

For an 20% cost decrease it would imply that the falcon 9 first stage is just 15-20% of the launch cost.

Main benefit of the SpaceX reusable project is that its an direct extension to the existing one and both would be used at the same time.

This changes the economy a lot.

[Nibb31]

For an 20% cost decrease it would imply that the falcon 9 first stage is just 15-20% of the launch cost.

You're right, it's probably less than that.

[SargeRho]

The actual hardware is the most expensive part, actually. You no longer have to build that as often, cutting a large part of the cost.

[Nibb31]

No it isn't. The most expensive part is the payroll for the people who will be building, designing, handling, integrating, testing, monitoring, maintaining, etc... These people are mostly highly qualified engineers and techs and are expensive to hire. By reusing the first stage, you only reduce some of the manpower required to build the first stage. All the other work still needs to be done.

[magnemoe]

No it isn't. The most expensive part is the payroll for the people who will be building, designing, handling, integrating, testing, monitoring, maintaining, etc... These people are mostly highly qualified engineers and techs and are expensive to hire. By reusing the first stage, you only reduce some of the manpower required to build the first stage. All the other work still needs to be done.

True, this is that made the space shuttle so expensive. High launch costs reduced the number of launches a lot who increased cost more in cycles.

Also why the B2 bomber is so expensive, lots of unique processes was used for creating 22 planes.

However SpaceX does a lot of stuff right, second stage is much like first and share engine.

The reusable first stage is an upgrade of the disposable one, both will be used, heavy is an upgrade of falcon 9, and the side boosters are modified first stages.

But yes they need volume to have profit. With higher volume the benefit of an reusable launcher increases.

[Requiem762]

As of now I think falcon heavy will be enough

[RuBisCO]

If they manage cross feeding with 3 cores, they could strap on 2 more non-cross fed cores to make a 5 core rocket with 3 stage separations events. One for the cross-fed cores, another for the non-cross fed cores and one for the actual second stage. I would guess they might be able to get 80 tons to LEO on that, just a guess though. But lets not get ahead of our selves: they need to launch a Falcon 9 heavy first, and have cross-fed in operation, all this talk on a super heavy is just day dreaming until then.

[Themohawkninja]

Could someone explain to me why such staging is so difficult? I know it has to do with the fuel pumps, but if you can pump fuel into an engine at a given rate, surely you can pump fuel into a fuel tank as such a rate, right?

[RuBisCO]

no they arn't pumping fuel, rather fuel is being drained from the side tanks into the center engines, this requires a system that can switch from outertanks to center tank once the out tank is drained instantaneously (without stopping the center engines), that never been done before.

[Nibb31]

Could someone explain to me why such staging is so difficult? I know it has to do with the fuel pumps, but if you can pump fuel into an engine at a given rate, surely you can pump fuel into a fuel tank as such a rate, right?

It's not that it can't be done, but it adds lots of complexity. And when there is complexity, there is added risk of failure. The increased risk isn't worth the rather small gain in efficiency compared to conventional parallel staging.

[Skyler4856]

*cough* government's that want to send probes to mars for a comparatively cheap cost *cough*