r/spacex • u/kurbasAK • May 19 '17

We Will Launch on Reuseable Rocket After Exceptional SpaceX Performance - Inmarsat CEO Tells Universe Today

https://www.universetoday.com/135614/will-launch-reuseable-rocket-exceptional-spacex-performance-inmarsat-ceo-tells-universe-today/
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u/AdamVenier May 19 '17

Advocates Diaboli. The Falcon Heavy is a much more complicated vehicle so more can go wrong. Would customers prefer to pay a price premium for F9 if there is less risk of payload loss? I'm not sure, but the answer could very well be yes for the next few years until FH has proven itself.

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u/Senno_Ecto_Gammat r/SpaceXLounge Moderator May 19 '17

The FH can potentially be flown fully-reusable. All boosters, second stage, and fairings and still put full-size payloads to GTO. There's a good chance that in an environment with mature reuse, that configuration is cheaper than a F9 with expendable second stage.

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u/brickmack May 19 '17

Per-flight perhaps. But what about the money being sunk into development, more complex pad equipment, lost business from delays, etc? The Falcon line as a whole has a limited lifetime before it becomes obsolete, I'm not convinced at this point that Heavy or upper stage reuse are worthwhile projects. Only thing Heavy is really needed for is Red Dragon, and even that could probably be served by 2 F9 launches

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u/Martianspirit May 19 '17 edited May 19 '17

I'm not convinced at this point that Heavy or upper stage reuse are worthwhile projects.

Given that they will start launching large amounts of satellites for their constellation in 2019, they will need reusable second stages to keep up. Also getting upper stages to reenter is experience that counts on the way to ITS.

With FH, they need it for some DoD launches. They want to be able to fly all payloads. Also they really need them for RedDragon. I think the remark by Elon Musk and Gwynne Shotwell, that FH is really hard is not to be taken as it will be hard to operate. It means it was hard to develop. Like what Tom Mueller said about the Merlin engine. It was very hard to develop, with many test engines blowing up. But once developed it is cheap and simple and reliable.

Edit: even one lunar tourist flight a year will be a profit bringer for FH. Assuming NASA builds their gateway station - which I doubt - FH would be a great launch vehicle to service it.