Falcon Heavy Demo Mission Payload Speculation

[IanThePineapple]

I think sending a Tesla to orbit would be a PR gold mine for Tesla, "First car in space"? Sending it to a flyby or even impact with the Moon or Mars would make it even cooler, "first car on Mars"!

[Galactic Penguin SST]

Seriously, if some kind of dummy weight (and it might not be just a metal ballast, it could also be some kind of load bearing structure and heavily instrumented) is to be carried, someone will have to make it. Either the construction is outsourced to some other company or something like that would have to be seen at Hawthrone (or at their new satellite construction facility, if there is one).

[Kaputnik]

Just how simple could a boilerplate OML scale model of the BFS be made?
Could it be ballasted to make it passively stable during entry? Seems like a good opportunity to gather data on heating.

[speedevil]

A low-tech deployable pressure vessel with very large margins.

This could vary from simply a folded kevlar (with UV film) cylinder, to a segmented metal tank for on-orbit assembly tests.

Or even several attempts at emergency inflatable reentry systems.



Something that people have been speculating on as 'too hard to develop' and needing lots of testing, done as a trial that is very likely to fail, to learn stuff.

[launchwatcher]

I think sending a Tesla to orbit would be a PR gold mine for Tesla, "First car in space"?

Would be the fourth electric car in space (the first three are still on the moon).

[matthewkantar]

I think sending a Tesla to orbit would be a PR gold mine for Tesla, "First car in space"?

Would be the fourth electric car in space (the first three are still on the moon).

There are more than three on the moon, and four on Mars.

[Wolfram66]

Or launch the 2nd X37-B to Molinya orbit or GTO to test ops at those heights

[IanThePineapple]

I think sending a Tesla to orbit would be a PR gold mine for Tesla, "First car in space"?

Would be the fourth electric car in space (the first three are still on the moon).

There are more than three on the moon, and four on Mars.

Sorry, I meant commercial car, one you could easily buy.

[Exastro]

How about a 40-ton water tank into low-inclination LEO?  Would demo FH lifting capability beyond any other existing LV, would take minimal effort to design and build, and would potentially be useful at some future time.

[Barrie]

How about a 40-ton water tank into low-inclination LEO?  Would demo FH lifting capability beyond any other existing LV, would take minimal effort to design and build, and would potentially be useful at some future time.

   Ideally it needs to be

.heavy
.cheap
.quick to build
.dispensable, and yet
.not pointless

[DOCinCT]

How about a 40-ton water tank into low-inclination LEO?  Would demo FH lifting capability beyond any other existing LV, would take minimal effort to design and build, and would potentially be useful at some future time.

40 ton (either metric or short) would be beyond the LEO capability of the recovered FH would it not?

[tdperk]

How about a 40-ton water tank into low-inclination LEO?  Would demo FH lifting capability beyond any other existing LV, would take minimal effort to design and build, and would potentially be useful at some future time.

40 ton (either metric or short) would be beyond the LEO capability of the recovered FH would it not?

I thought that was 54 tons and the expendable was 70+.

[IanThePineapple]

recoverable should be around 30, maybe 40 tons, and 64 expendable.

[oldAtlas_Eguy]

Unless they created a new payload adapter the max payload weight is 22mt.

Also since the FH was supposed to fly last year, 18 months ago, the payload has probably been push over into a corner in one of the payload processing buildings that SpaceX has at KSC/Cape.

[calapine]

Just out of curiosity, do we know  - or have a reasonable good guesstimate - what Falcon Heavy payload performance would be for GTO 1800 m/s with RTLS (not DRL) of all 3 stages?

(Whether that setup is practicable is another question)

- Cala

[IanThePineapple]

Just out of curiosity, do we know  - or have a reasonable good guesstimate - what Falcon Heavy payload performance would be for GTO 1800 m/s with RTLS (not DRL) of all 3 stages?

(Whether that setup is practicable is another question)

- Cala

[Huge guess alert] I'd guess 4-6mT. DRL of the core could likely nearly double that. DRL + boostback (like CRS-8/Iridiums) might be around 1.5x the 3-RTLS guess. [/Huge guess alert]

[Star One]

Just out of curiosity, do we know  - or have a reasonable good guesstimate - what Falcon Heavy payload performance would be for GTO 1800 m/s with RTLS (not DRL) of all 3 stages?

(Whether that setup is practicable is another question)

- Cala

[Huge guess alert] I'd guess 4-6mT. DRL of the core could likely nearly double that. DRL + boostback (like CRS-8/Iridiums) might be around 1.5x the 3-RTLS guess. [/Huge guess alert]

Purely speculatively could it insert directly into GEO something like the Advanced Orion?

[Space Ghost 1962]

Back to F9US "hail mary" recovery attempt.

First off, past examples of SX "hail mary" attempts, to get some idea of scope: (feel free to add)
 1. Falcon 1 engine recovery - booster/parachutes could not take the dynamic load
 2. Falcon 9 1.0 engine recovery - ditto
 3. Falcon 9 1.1 stage recovery "Cassiopia" - landing above ocean then boom
 4. Various barge landings, ending in boom.
 5. Densified propellants - hot fire loss

SX will risk if there's the point of gain. The gain can be as little as proving that an option cannot be made to work.

Next, reapplication of abandoned capability(Dragon 2 landing) to future need(Ship landing). What's different? Larger scale, higher CG, fluffy (e.g. tanks) payload. Opportunity - bring a US (Ship) down from LEO to sea level. For this to be effective you need to preserve the ability of the US to retain effective use, like 4-5 mT to GTO 1800 capability.

Then, assuming you reach "gas-n-go" reuse with three boosters, and can eventually reuse US (after reprocessing), you might reduce your dependency on new US per flight of "flight proven booster".

How to do this - integrated Dragon 2 propulsion system with appropriately sized tankage into payload adapter, lower interface/thrust structure accepting / transmitting loads two way to engine up (high CG) F9US on recovery, upper interface to dummy payload that is jettisoned with dummy payload, revealing one-off larger diameter Dragon derived heat shield. Propulsion/flight controls consist of upper (near MerlinVac) ring and lower ring (payload adapter) thrusters in addition to Dragon 2 derived SuperDraco's. Significant thrust structure between upper/lower payload adapter interfaces to handle asymmetric torques. Significant avionics/software challenge to merge/manage flight controls to handle stability from EI down to MaxQ, down to transonic, down to terminal braking (principle risk and benefit of this effort).

Profile - post boost phase standard ascent and orbital injection, high decay rate for mass simulator/upper adapter. Post separation US aligns for retro as if disposal burn, but guidance for terminal offshore target (as with Dragon recovery resources/assets, or other). Post retro burn enter recovery "high gate" to avoid tumble, and work down to maximum drag/loads density altitude. SuperDraco burns then expand drag plume to allow US with minimal SPAM to survive through thermal and transonic transition. Free fall at terminal velocity with cold gas roll/pitch/yaw stabilization to near sea level. Braking burn to hoverslam, engine shutdown / tankage vent / "fireball".

Scoop up remains and passivate hypers - most dangerous part if you don't count the fueling/encapsulation of such a payload/adapter. (If successful, to use regularly such an adapter, you'd have to likely add a LV processing step/facility to load/unload props safely, prior to rollout/rollback.)

Control authority of such an approach concerns me. What doesn't concern me is parasitic payload loss, because that could be worked down if the "hail mary" came close.

Comments?

[Barrie]

AIUI the assumption has been that heavy modification of the US would invalidate the demo flight as a certification flight.  If recovery mods could be organized as bolt-on goodies, like - forgive me - an Iron Man suit for the US, that issue might be side-stepped.  Once there is a proof-of-concept, there might be a more integrated implementation later.

[IanThePineapple]

Just out of curiosity, do we know  - or have a reasonable good guesstimate - what Falcon Heavy payload performance would be for GTO 1800 m/s with RTLS (not DRL) of all 3 stages?

(Whether that setup is practicable is another question)

- Cala

[Huge guess alert] I'd guess 4-6mT. DRL of the core could likely nearly double that. DRL + boostback (like CRS-8/Iridiums) might be around 1.5x the 3-RTLS guess. [/Huge guess alert]

Purely speculatively could it insert directly into GEO something like the Advanced Orion?

[Huge guess alert] Full RTLS? Probably only a tiny payload, 1-2 tons. DRL with no boostback might get a 3-4 ton craft to GEO. DRL boostback might get 2-3 tons to GEO. Full expendable might get near 8-10 tons to GEO [/Huge guess alert]