In-depth: Musk Falcon Heavy carries sports cars to Mars, is it the most powerful rocket or excellent marketing

In 2016, Musk finally nailed the recovery of the first-stage rocket, and he kind of made history. Previously, he had done things that had been done before, and he was just catching up. But he was the first one to do it, so it can be said that Musk made history.

Although the Falcon 9 rocket has excellent performance, launching general satellites is no problem, but launching heavy spacecraft, and launch launching deep space probes, is a bit overwhelming. Musk wants to go to Mars, but Falcon 9 is unable to complete this task.

So, Falcon 9 improved to Block5 on the finalized, no longer significantly improved, used to earn money, used to maintain cash flow has been enough to use, Musk to turn attention to other aspects.

To increase the capacity, the easiest way is to bundle, like the long two bundles, the effect is immediate. But Musk does not like the bundle type because the booster this thing to say big is not big, say small is not small. Throw a pity, install the recycling device it, no place, not cost-effective.

In Musk's view, "mosquito legs are also meat", and can be recycled as much as possible. Even if the rocket is fairing, which also costs millions of dollars, throwing it away is a pity.

The fairing also has weight, so after the rocket takes off and flies out of the dense atmosphere, the fairing will be thrown away immediately, to reduce the weight. Parachutes can be installed on the fairing, and the parachute can be manipulated by pulling the rope. So, SpaceX got a big ship, opened a big net, and waited for the fairing to fall in the designated sea. You can see it, the fairing from the sky slowly floating down, in the role of the wind does not necessarily run to which side, the sea on the big ship back and forth chaos, dead follow the parachute run. Easy to catch up, the fairing fell into the big net, but the wind blew, the parachute was blown up, and the fairing was dragged into the water, which was a waste of time. So, it is very important to cut off the parachute in time.

Of course, our Long March 2 and Long March 4 launches from the launch site, such as the Long March 4 launch from Shanxi usually launch polar-orbiting satellites, in vertical orbit around the Earth. After flying up, it flew southward and arrived at Hubei or Chongqing in this generation, just to throw the fairing. The result was picked up by farmers as the roof of the carport, you can rest assured that it can not be wasted.

In the spirit of more fast and better, the final approach of the Heavy Falcon rocket is to bundle three identical first-stage rockets together and add a bundle locking mechanism. The three rockets have a takeoff thrust of 2,200 tons, with a delivery capacity of 64 tons in near-Earth orbit, 27 tons in a synchronous transfer orbit, and 17 tons in Mars orbit.

Once the rocket takes off, the middle core stage rocket starts to hold the small throttle and mainly relies on the boosters on both sides to exert force. The boosters on both sides burn out before long. At this time, the rocket is not far from the launch site, so the boosters can turn around and fly back to the launch site to land.

When the boosters on both sides are thrown away, the core stage rocket in the middle starts to turn on its full power to send the load upward. When the first stage rocket burns out, the big flat plate ship below is waiting in the Atlantic Ocean. According to the general process of landing on the big flat ship, the first stage rocket all recovered.

When I heard this news, my heart stuttered. Because the Heavy Falcon Falcon is finally going to touch that most important taboo in the space industry, which is the parallel connection of multiple engines. The N1 rocket exploded because of the poor coordination of 30 engine vibrations, thus causing the fuel tube to be damaged by vibration.

Falcon 9 is 9 engines is not outrageous, our Long March 5 includes the booster, and the engine also has 10 its. But the number of engines of the heavy Falcon is 27, boy, almost catch up with the original N1. If this line, Korolev's coffin board is to be pressed.

Musk was originally a parallel connection maniac, Tesla electric car battery is thousands of cylindrical batteries together to form the power system, managing the thousands of batteries charge and discharge can handle, can not 27 engines? Nevertheless, Musk is not completely sure, low profile, and tries to keep a low profile.

In the past, the first launch of the new version of the rocket, if carefully considered, is generally put counterweight, installed a radio beacon, can send back some data enough. Musk brain how good ah, simply use it for advertising. Heavy Falcon first test load only a red sports car, of course, at that time, is not to Mars launch window, according to theoretical calculations, the weight of the sports car does not exceed 2 tons. A breath of air to Mars orbit is no problem, but at that time Mars is not in this position, so the sports car is not encountered by Mars. No matter, it is enough to explain the problem.

The first launch of the heavy Falcon rocket was also pushed back again and again and finally postponed to February 2018. Musk fans a lot of ah, so many people are looking forward to the heavy Falcon rocket can become, because this is the world's largest rocket in service at the time. A private company exceeded the level of the national team, in the space industry this is still a groundbreaking thing.

You do not say, heavy Falcon rocket or launched successfully. When the 27 Merlin engines ignited and pushed the rocket up, countless people were cheering.

The two boosters burned out first, and after separation, they turned around and returned to the launch site, and there were still two of them, standing in unison, as neatly as a double dive.

The middle core stage rocket was to land on the ship after completing its mission, but this time it didn't work out and the core stage rocket fell into the sea, but it wasn't a big deal. The second stage rocket successfully sent the Tesla Roadster into orbit to the asteroid belt, this time it could not encounter Mars, next time to fight.

At this point, the Heavy Falcon rocket is considered a success, that is, in modern technology conditions. This means that under modern technology, it is feasible and safe to connect multiple engines in parallel. This also lays the foundation for mankind to build super-large rockets. We don't have to develop super-large engines, we can use relatively small engines in parallel.

There are not many launches of heavy Falcon rockets because this capacity is high and low. Carrying general commercial satellites can not be used, carrying the moon module such a load it, and not enough. Unless it is to save enough cargo to carry all at once. Even so, the Heavy Falcon currently has the largest capacity of the rocket.

Since then, SpaceX began to leave other space companies behind, including those suppliers that NASA brought along to grow up, such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin. They are both arms giants and are internationally renowned.

Lockheed owns the Cosmos family of rockets. The current main one is Cosmos 5, and the first stage uses the Russian RD180 engine. I can't help it, the Russians' products are really good. The United States is also developing alternative products because the relationship between the United States and Russia is not good, in case one day is cut off the supply, it is not good, although there is still a little stock, but after all, with a less one. The AR-1 engine developed by the U.S. Air Jet Corporation is still not finished, and the RD180, which is cheap and abundant, is no match.

The booster used for Cosmos 5 is a solid rocket, and the Americans are very good at this. The second stage is the Centaurus upper stage, with the hydrogen-oxygen engine, this is also the United States specialty.

Boeing has Delta 4 Heavy rocket, the first stage of this rocket is also three bundled together. The middle one is the first-stage rocket, and the one next to it is the booster. Each rocket has an RS68 hydrogen-oxygen rocket engine with a thrust of 300 tons, and the total of the three units is about 900 tons. This rocket was originally owned by McDonnell Douglas, but later McDonnell Douglas was bought by Boeing, so it also came under the Boeing umbrella.

These two companies form a launch alliance, monopolizing the U.S. space launch market. Their characteristic is that they are expensive, ridiculously expensive. After the accident of the space shuttle Columbia, we all understand that the space shuttle must be gradually retired because the maintenance costs of such things are becoming more and more expensive. Many parts suppliers are no longer produced. Specializing in a small production of little parts is, of course, very expensive. Replace it with a new one, no one dares, the system is too complex, and no one dares to modify it. In addition, the passenger and cargo mix is not a cost-effective deal, to launch a satellite, must be accompanied by seven astronauts, which is a play ah? Therefore, NASA in 2011, project to develop the next generation of rockets and spacecraft.

In NASA's view, near-Earth space is no longer much fun, for private commercial companies to launch enough to cope with. As a national team, the next task is to explore the moon and fire. The capacity of the near-Earth orbit should be at least 70~150 tons to be enough. To go to the Moon, one rocket is enough, similar to the Saturn 5 back then. If you go to Mars, you need multiple launches and multiple splices, and then go to Mars.

In short, the existing rocket is simply not enough, must develop beyond the Saturn 5 giant rocket, this giant rocket is the so-called "space launch system". The technology they use is still inherited from the space shuttle, there is so good hydrogen-oxygen engine, so why not use it? The big orange canister is the main body of the rocket with a few changes. The two huge solid rocket boosters are also inherited from the Space Shuttle.

The United States has not built a manned spacecraft for many years, this project Orion spacecraft can carry seven astronauts at a time, more than the Apollo spacecraft in the past. The space shuttle is an order of magnitude. In this project and the past Apollo program and the space shuttle program, the family has a share of the rain.

Rock Dain is responsible for the liquid engine, the number RS-25D, which is a modified version of the engine of the space shuttle, but at that time to consider reuse, and therefore more expensive, now is a one-time use, at least to simplify a little, to suppress the cost, the space launch system of the first stage of the rocket needs to use four such hydrogen-oxygen engines.

Rock Dain is an old rocket engine supplier with deep merit. Today Rock Dain has long been a subsidiary of Pratt & Whitney, which builds aero engines, and Pratt & Whitney is a subsidiary of United Technologies Corporation. This United Technologies Corporation is a variety of everything to engage in, Otis elevator is their family. In the middle of a period acquired Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation, the production of Black Hawk and Apache helicopters of that one, and later Lockheed Martin from their hands to buy Sikorsky. Then later United Technologies and Raytheon merged, and Raytheon the production of Patriot missiles. Anyway, after a series of acquisitions and restructuring, now the major military companies are broken bones, forming a few monopoly giants.

Solid booster test drive

Solid booster is Northrop Grumman to be responsible for. This has always been their job. Anyway, this project of the Space Launch System is to piggyback on all the manufacturers that NASA has cultivated for decades, with a steady investment of $3~5 billion every year for so many years.

So the space launch system developers team can not be described as not luxurious, basically equivalent to the U.S. national team. Unfortunately, their development efficiency is not good, repeatedly dragging the period skipped. Even so, NASA and Congress did not give up on this project. Because the eggs can not be put in a basket. NASA, on the one hand, keeps the old military-industrial complex, on the other, vigorously promotes the private sector to join the space business. Musk is just one of the best of the best. Behind there are Blue Origin, Sierra Nevada, and a string of private companies it.

2019, the year marks the 50th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing. NASA announced the Artemis Project. To return to the moon, but also to establish an expedition station on the surface of the moon, in orbit around the moon to establish a Lunar Gate space station, and can be used as a staging area to Mars, in short, there are multiple considerations. According to the plan, it should be this year, using the space launch system to launch the Orion spacecraft to achieve unmanned flight around the moon. Unfortunately, NASA did not specify a specific date. A while ago the RS-25D engine did ground tests and it seemed to be a problem. The original plan was to last 485 seconds, but it turned off after only a minute or so on, so something must have been found.

The moon module program, NASA handed over to SpaceX, Blue Origin, Loma, and so on the luxury combination of the national team finally did not win the bid. spaceX's starship although constantly blowing up, well at least in steady progress. And the price is also cheap, people also bring their rockets, in case of the space launch system or the old jump. NASA can not wait indefinitely, right?

One of the characteristics of SpaceX is a good attitude, action is fast. When Blue Origin's rocket is still just a PPT, people Musk's rocket has been engaged in commercial launches. Although Musk's Starship giant rocket's verification version even blew up several times, that is also much better than the eight words have not been a first. For each test, all the NASA people were invited to observe, how to say is also a customer ah, serve a good party is the right thing to do.

Musk from Falcon 1 got up and later came up with the gold medal rocket Falcon 9, which is a worthy model, the main force of commercial launch. Then rely on the parallel connection of three Falcon 9 of the first stage, to get a heavy Falcon rocket, which became the largest rocket capacity. But because the capacity to engage is high, not low, so the launch opportunities are not much. The good thing is that this is originally spelled out with the Falcon 9 arrow body, but is not a waste.

Musk, of course, will not be satisfied with this. Although the Merlin engine thrust-to-weight ratio is unbelievable because it is a gas generator cycle the impulse is not very good. If you want to build a bigger rocket, build a bigger engine. Relying on the gas generator is not possible, must use graded combustion. Just like the engine of the space shuttle, at least to reach about 300 tons of thrust, and then rely on parallel a large bundle to create a giant rocket, the size of this rocket far beyond the Saturn 5.

Musk named the next-generation rocket Starship. The first step is to design a new engine for this rocket. This engine is codenamed "Raptor". The path this engine will take is destined to be unusual. First of all, the fuel is completely different from the engines of the past. We'll talk about that another time.