Falcon Heavy maiden flight (mission thread)

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With Falcon Heavy #1 now being constructed in SpaceX's Hawthorne, California factory, and likely to be shipped to McGregor, Texas for testing later this year, it's about time to start following its progress.

A review,

Falcon Heavy is a tri-core launcher like Delta IV Heavy, but with more lift capacity. It consists of a Falcon 9 center core and 2 Falcon 9 based side boosters, each of which has been lengthened to increase their propellant capacity.

FH uses LOX (liquid oxygen) and RP-1 (a highly refined kerosene rocket fuel) as propellants. It uses helium to pressurize the tanks and nitrogen gas thrusters for attitude control. It may or may not use grid fins (see F9R Dev-1 posts) for first stage atmospheric guidance in reusable mode. Those are still undergoing tests.

SpaceX recently posted that FH will by default fly in reusable mode to further reduce launch costs.

FH can use propellant cross-feed, which essentially keeps the center core relatively full until the boosters drop off. Like launching a Falcon 9 at high altitude instead of sea level. This makes the cross-feed configuration a 3 stage launcher - labeled 0 (boosters), 1 (center core) and 2 (upper stage.)

With each core having nine Merlin 1D engines FH will sport 27 engines at launch, producing 17,615 kN (3,960,000 lbf) at sea level and 20,017 kN (4,500,000 lbf) of vacuum thrust. Its multi-restartable M1DVac upper stage engine produces 801 kN (180,000 lbf) of vacuum thrust.

Falcon Heavy will have the capacity to launch more mass to low Earth orbit (LEO) than any launcher since Saturn V (13 launches) and Energia (2 launches),

53,000 kilograms (117,000 lb) to low Earth orbit (LEO)

21,200 kilograms (46,700 lb) to geostationary transfer orbit (GTO)

13,200 kilograms (29,100 lb) to Mars

The 53,000 kg payload to LEO puts FH into the "super heavy-lift" as defined by the NASA human spaceflight review panel. It will be human rated.

With the standard 5.2x13.1 meter payload fairing FH will be 68.4 meters (224.4 feet) tall, but there are indications a longer fairing is in the works - about 5.2x19 meters. This is likely for launching Bigelow Aerospace's BA-330 commercial spaces station modules. FH should be about 74 meters (242.8 feet) tall with the enhanced fairing.

JimNtexas , a pilot who frequents NASASpaceFlight.com, flew over SpaceX's McGregor test facility yesterday and took some interesting pics. One of note is the FH test stand, zoomed and enhanced below.

When viewing Jim's gallery remember that a Falcon 9 first stage like what's on the tripod stand, and F9R Dev-1, are both over 150 feet tall.

Gallery link....

Zoom of Falcon Heavy stand. The tower to the left is the stage pressure qualification stand.

Falcon Heavy (SpaceX graphic)