Falcon Heavy's Next Launch Could Expend Center Core and Land Boosters at Sea for Extra Performance
takyon writes:
SpaceX's next Falcon Heavy launch could expend (destroy) the first stage center core, while landing the two side boosters on separate drone ships. This configuration could carry almost as much mass as a launch using a fully expendable Falcon Heavy:
Hot on the heels of the revelation that SpaceX's next Falcon Heavy launch is on schedule and will carry a small satellite copassenger, a US Space Force official has effectively confirmed that it will feature the first dual rocket landing of its kind.
[...] USSF-44 was the second operational launch contract won by Falcon Heavy and will send a ~3.7 metric ton (~8200 lb) satellite and an unknown number of secondary spacecraft directly to geostationary orbit (GEO) - a first for SpaceX. As far as Earth-centric orbits go, a direct-to-GEO launch is uniquely complicated and energy-intensive for the rockets that must perform them. As a result, it's long been suspected that Falcon Heavy's first GEO launch would also coincide with another first for SpaceX rocket recovery, an educated guess that has now been (partially) confirmed by the USSF.
[...] Thanks to the apparent challenges of center core recovery and the simple fact that Falcon Heavy doesn't launch nearly as much as Falcon 9, none of the three custom, highly-complex boosters have survived to be reused or inspected intact. Until the center core recovery problem can be fixed, SpaceX will thus likely have to assume that it must build a new center booster for every future Falcon Heavy launch, even if a given mission permits a landing attempt.
Thankfully, there are some circumstantial benefits to be derived if SpaceX, for example, doesn't even try to recover a Falcon Heavy center core. Speaking back in 2018, CEO Elon Musk revealed that Falcon Heavy could launch in a partially-reusable configuration - intentionally expending the center core and recovering both side boosters on two separate drone ships - with only a 10% cut to performance.
Side boosters landing on droneships & center expended is only ~10% performance penalty vs fully expended. Cost is only slightly higher than an expended F9, so around $95M.
Falcon Heavy's payload to low Earth orbit when fully expended is 63.8 (metric) tons, or 26.7 tons to geostationary transfer orbit.
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