News Intelsat Signs First Commercial Falcon Heavy Launch Agreement with SpaceX

[legios]

SpaceX

I thought that the ability to do pad hold downs were a heavily advertized feature of SpaceX rockets. I remember Elon Musk comparing pad hold downs to the engine run-ups that aircraft do before taking off. I doubt they will ever change.

Also, regarding the loss of engines, their website states, "The Falcon Heavy is designed for extreme reliability and can tolerate the failure of several engines and still complete its mission. As on commercial airliners, protective shells surround each engine to contain a worst-case situation such as fire or a chamber rupture, and prevent it from affecting the other engines and stages. A disabled engine is automatically shut down, and the remaining engines operate slightly longer to compensate for the loss without detriment to the mission."

Anyone hear how many engines = several?

 

[Urwumpe]

Anyone hear how many engines = several?

That is not a constant number, but depends on flight phase. Early in flight, two could already be too much on a Falcon 9, later, all but two is still acceptable if the control system can handle it.

 

[MattBaker]

Wait, if you launch 6 satellites with two Falcon Heavy you're at 28-43 million US-Dollar per satellite, if you launch 6 satellits with three Ariane 5, you're at 110 million per satellite.
Either SpaceX is a great cost reduction or the $83-128 million are not the real cost, but rather a wrong pricetag to make it interesting.

 

[Urwumpe]

Wait, if you launch 6 satellites with two Falcon Heavy you're at 28-43 million US-Dollar per satellite, if you launch 6 satellits with three Ariane 5, you're at 110 million per satellite.
Either SpaceX is a great cost reduction or the $83-128 million are not the real cost, but rather a wrong pricetag to make it interesting.

I think the truth is somewhere between. The Ariane V could be more expensive than the Falcon Heavy, since the Ariane V is just cheaper than comparable launchers on the market, expecially the Proton, which is overall cheaper, but has less performance and requires the satellite to do more, if heavy.

But since SpaceX publishes not much financial data at all, it is impossible to even say the price of a launch and especially not the price that SpaceX would need to charge to not be making a strategic loss.

 

[RGClark]

19 metric tons to GTO.

Maybe 3-4 satellites.

We have never had a GTO launcher with this much capability.

I had seen that the GTO mass was 19,000 kg but this latest release says it's 12,000 kg:

Intelsat Signs First Commercial Falcon Heavy Launch Agreement.
http://blog.nss.org/?p=3650&cpage=1#comment-34400


Bob Clark

 

[MattBaker]

I had seen that the GTO mass was 19,000 kg but this latest release says it's 12,000 kg

It probably depends what's their definition of GTO, which inclination, which perigee etc.
Also there is this propellant cross-feed between the core stage and the two booster stages, if you deactivate this you have less performance than with cross-feeding. So maybe the 19 metric tons is with cross-feeding and the 12 are without.