Update: On Tuesday afternoon, SpaceX successfully conducted a test flight of the Falcon Heavy, now the most powerful rocket in operation. The launch, from the same pad at Kennedy used for many of the Apollo flights, went off at 3:45 EST, and for the first flight of a new craft, everything seemed to go surprisingly well. The test payload — Elon Musk’s personal Tesla roadster with a space-suited crash dummy on board and a copy of Issac Asimov’s Foundation series in the trunk — will continue on an arcing flight out to the distance of Mars. The two side boosters returned to the space center like clockwork and carried out side by side landings. As the center booster was landing on the drone ship, cameras were lost. It’s still not clear that third booster was successfully recovered.
The Saturn V was an amazingly huge machine. Even today, when the last sad examples lay on their sides, the sheer scale of the moon rockets is overwhelming. At over 360 feet tall and capable of lofting 130 metric tons (310,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit, nothing else has come close.
The Falcon Heavy … is not that big. But it’s still big. Standing 230 feet tall and capable of carrying 64 metric tons (141,000 pounds) to orbit, if it succeeds in leaving the pad at Kennedy Space Center, it will be the most powerful rocket to fly since the last space shuttle left the pad. The Falcon Heavy is theoretically capable of carrying more mass to orbit than any rocket since the last Saturn—originally built for the cancelled Apollo 18—was used to launch Skylab in 1973.
And that’s not the only reason that today could be a big day for space flight.
The Saturn V was a highly specialized, and completely disposable device. Its massive engines were built for the single purpose of getting the astronauts out of Earth’s orbit, and nothing like it has been made since. By comparison, the Falcon Heavy is a general purpose device, and its boosters are designed to be recoverable through the same active landing technology used on the smaller Falcon 9. In fact, the easiest way to think of the Falcon Heavy is as a Falcon 9 … times three.
Odds that the Falcon Heavy will actually fly today should be considered low. Though an earlier static test appeared to go off without a hitch, this is a complex machine whose history has been full of delays. The test flight of the Falcon Heavy was originally slated for 2013, and the delays have been coming ever since. However, as SpaceX has delayed the launch, they’ve actually improved the craft, so that the Falcon Heavy hitting the pad now is considerably more powerful than original projections. While it’s clear that SpaceX is finally on the brink of a launch, it will be no surprise at all if some last-minute red light scratches today’s planned launched.
But it they go … it should be a show. Launch is currently scheduled for 1:30 PM EST.
If SpaceX can successfully add the Heavy to its arsenal, it won’t just give them a larger device for lifting commercial payloads, it will expand the whole idea of what those payloads can be. The Space Shuttle could carry around 27 metric tons to orbit. The biggest commercial rocket still flying, the Delta IV Heavy from the United Launch Alliance, can put about 28 metric tons in orbit.
The Falcon Heavy would essentially double the potential size of an orbital device, and that advantage doesn’t end a low Earth orbit. A Delta IV Heavy can send about 10 tons to the Moon. The Falcon Heavy can send 20. Plus, Space X says it can do this for one third the cost of a Delta launch.
And of course, it can send a Tesla to Mars—without about 12 tons to spare. That kind of capacity opens the door for a new generation of satellites and probes, as well as potential manned flights.
The Delta IV Heavy is actually a bit taller than the Falcon Heavy and has a similar appearance. It has been the biggest beast available for launching material to orbit since the Shuttle’s retirement and has been in service over 15 years. The Arianespace Ariane 5 manages about 20 metric tons to orbit. The Chinese Long March 5 carries about 23 metric tons.
The Space Shuttle has around 6 millions pounds of thrust coming off the pad, the Falcon Heavy should be good for about 5 million. Stay tuned.