SpaceX Payload capability summary for different vehicle and landing combinations

[TheKutKu]

I did the same Falcon Heavy Payload estimate while taking into account today's launch numbers, first i got 35 tons of propellant at least at MECO for NROL 76's launch, and if you remove the Boostback burn it goes down to 15 tons. Payload is in metric ton.

Orbit

GTO 1800

GTO 1500

TLI

TMI

ASDS+RTLS

42

16.8

14.5

12.2

9,9

RTLS+Expended Core

46

19

16.5

13.9

11.4

[M.E.T.]

I did the same Falcon Heavy Payload estimate while taking into account today's launch numbers, first i got 35 tons of propellant at least at MECO for NROL 76's launch, and if you remove the Boostback burn it goes down to 15 tons. Payload is in metric ton.

Orbit

GTO 1800

GTO 1500

TLI

TMI

ASDS+RTLS

42

16.8

14.5

12.2

9,9

RTLS+Expended Core

46

19

16.5

13.9

11.4

So the entire mass of the ISS, which is currently just over 400 tons according to Wikipedia, could have been lifted to LEO with just 10 fully reusable Falcon Heavy launches? So effectively, with just one Falcon Heavy rocket, reused 10 times.

Does anyone know what the total launch cost of the ISS structure has been to date?

[Celestar]

Hard to say.

There were 27 shuttle flights, 5 Protons, and a low number of Soyuz. But how do we price the shuttle flights. According to wikipedia (cough), the total cost of the Shuttle program is about 200 billion. About 20% of the flights were ISS assembly flights, so that would put the costs at about 40 billion (which would place a single flight way north of a billion). The Proton flights seem to be rounding errors in that computation.

Celestar

[gospacex]

It could easily happen if SpaceX adds another ASDS operating out of Brownsville. It would only take a week or two to tow OCISLY and JTRI to the Gulf to catch 3 cores.

No, the barges are too wide to pass through the Panama canal without extensive modifications. They had to partially disassemble one to get it to the west coat.

(1) Actually, these barges are designed to pass through the canal. It is not a coincidence they are 100 feet wide while canal is 106. Wing extensions are foldable.

(2) Panama canal just opened a wider lock last year.

[rpapo]

Wing extensions are foldable.

They weren't, and aren't.  They were removed and placed on deck for the Panama crossing, and welded back in place after the ASDS arrived in Los Angeles.

Removing and reinstalling the wings is not a big deal by some standards, but is far more work than just folding them up.  It takes days, if not weeks, to do it.