When Will the Falcon Heavy Fly Again
The next flight of SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket, previously scheduled for this month, has been pushed dorsum to early 2022 after more delays caused past its U.S. war machine payload, a Space Force spokesperson said.
The launch of the Space Force's USSF-44 mission was set for Oct. 9, but officials have delayed the mission "to accommodate payload readiness," a spokesperson for Infinite Systems Control said in a response to questions from Spaceflight Now.
The Space Force did non release a new launch date for the USSF-44 mission, but the spokesperson said the launch is at present targeted for early 2022, near 3 years since the near contempo Falcon Heavy launch in June 2019.
The Falcon Heavy volition deliver multiple military payloads to a high-distance geosynchronous orbit on the USSF-44 mission. The rocket's upper stage volition fire several times to place the satellites into position more than than 22,000 miles above the equator.
The upper stage flying profile will include a coast lasting more than five hours between burns, making the USSF-44 mission one of SpaceX'south most enervating launches even so.
One of the spacecraft on the USSF-44 launch is a microsatellite named TETRA 1 built by Millennium Space Systems, a subsidiary of Boeing headquartered in El Segundo, California. Military machine officials said in a statement the TETRA 1 satellite was created to "prototype missions and tactics, techniques and procedures in and effectually geosynchronous Earth orbit."
The war machine has non disclosed information near the other satellite, or satellites, on the USSF-44 mission. Payload delays previously pushed dorsum the USSF-44 launch from July to October.
SpaceX will use three newly-manufactured boosters for the USSF-44 mission. All of the boosters were delivered to the Florida launch base earlier this year.
The challenging launch profile will leave no leftover propellant to recover the heart core of the Falcon Heavy, co-ordinate to the Space Force. The core phase volition be expended on the launch, while the rocket'due south two side boosters will be recovered on ii SpaceX drone ships positioned downrange due east of Cape Canaveral.
Despite the long gap between Falcon Heavy flights, next year is shaping up to be a busy year for the rocket, with iv launches of the heavy-lifter scheduled from Florida's Infinite Declension between January and August.
The Infinite Systems Command spokesperson said the USSF-52 mission, the next national security launch on a Falcon Heavy after USSF-44, is scheduled for the second quarter of 2022. The side by side commercial Falcon Heavy launch is as well scheduled for the second quarter of 2022, conveying a Viasat 3 broadband communications satellite toward geostationary orbit.
Adjacent Baronial, NASA's robotic Psyche spacecraft is scheduled to launch aboard a Falcon Heavy rocket on a mission to explore a metallic asteroid orbiting the sun between Mars and Jupiter.
Another mission in late 2022, designated USSF-67, may likewise use a Falcon Heavy rocket, but the Infinite Forcefulness hasn't confirmed if it will launch on a Falcon Heavy or on SpaceX's single-stick Falcon 9 rocket.
All Falcon Heavy flights from Florida smash off from pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Infinite Heart, the same circuitous used by Apollo lunar missions, space shuttles, and SpaceX's coiffure missions.
SpaceX has at to the lowest degree 10 confirmed Falcon Heavy launches in its backlog, including missions to dispatch NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft toward Jupiter, and to send the first two elements of the planned Gateway mini-space station toward the moon, both in 2024.
NASA's VIPER moon rover is besides slated to launch on a Falcon Heavy in tardily 2023, and a NOAA atmospheric condition satellite is assigned to launch on a Falcon Heavy in 2024.
NASA has also contracted SpaceX for 2 Falcon Heavy flights to heave Dragon XL cargo missions to the Gateway station later in the 2020s.
The Falcon Heavy is made up of iii modified Falcon ix first stage boosters connected together in a triple-core configuration. The rocket's 27 Merlin main engines produce some 5.ane million pounds of thrust at liftoff, more than any other currently operational rocket.
The Falcon Heavy will get more than U.S. military launch contracts in the coming years.
The Space Strength concluding year appear multibillion-dollar contracts to wing the armed forces'due south most disquisitional national security payloads on United Launch Alliance Vulcan Centaur rockets and SpaceX Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launchers through 2027.
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Source: https://spaceflightnow.com/2021/10/04/payload-issue-delays-spacexs-next-falcon-heavy-launch-to-early-2022/
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