COMMUNICATIONRESEARCH NEWS – driving the future Not many of us would have expected a Tesla Roadster to be orbiting the Sun in 2018. But on February 6th, the unusual payload was hurled into space by SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy. International audiences watched in awe as the world’s most powerful launched from ’s Cape Canaveral – blasting off from the same that sent the Apollo 11 to the . Now astronomers are tracking it just like an or comet.

Aside from putting the first commercial methods. Rather than producing a range the Sun. The ‘third burn’ overshot, sending car into space, why has SpaceX wowed the of different engines with different specs, it into an between and , world with Falcon Heavy? Let’s take a closer SpaceX has just one – the Merlin. Quite where it’s thought the Tesla will eventually look at what makes this launch such a big simply, the more powerful the rocket needed, pass through the . achievement, what it means for the space the more Merlins are strapped into its first industry and why many of us are feeling stage. Apparently, Falcon Heavy provides a There’s a sportscar in space, and humanity more than a little star-struck. cost of roughly US$ 1,300 per kg of payload. has a new heavy-lift – the most In comparison, NASA’s cost powerful reusable operational rocket to have OUT OF THIS WORLD US$ 60,000 per kg. Time will tell what ever existed. I don’t know about you but Falcon Heavy is the most powerful impact this price drop will have on the I’m feeling pretty excited about the future operational rocket in the world by a factor space industry. of space travel. of two. Stage one of the rocket had more than five million pounds of thrust at lift off – equal A PAYLOAD WITH PIZZAZZ! Rachel Perrin, PhD, is a science to approximately eighteen 747 aircraft at full To simulate the mass of a potential payload, communication writer based in Bristol, UK. power. Stage one is made up of three Falcon previous similar test flights used massive 9 : comprising 27 Merlin engines all concrete or steel blocks. In February we working in tandem, strapped together to witnessed SpaceX’s founder create one giant . But it’s not just throw his cherry-red Tesla convertible into sheer lifting ability that sets Falcon Heavy space, with the message *made on apart. It also pioneers reusable rocket by humans*. Musk posted on Instagram: ’… technology. SpaceX believes that reusability we decided to send something unusual, is the key breakthrough needed to reduce something that made us feel.’ The sportscar the cost of space travel. It reuses its empty carries a dummy in a SpaceX , boosters; two of Falcon Heavy’s rockets in and blasts ’s ‘Space Oddity’ fact had been used in previous missions. from its speakers. A second Hot Wheels version of the Tesla sits on the real Roadster’s A ROARING SUCCESS dashboard. Back here on Earth collectors In February’s launch, almost three minutes are now paying more than 100 times the after lift-off the two outer boosters retail price for the toy. Although the Tesla broke away and returned to Earth. In a adds pizzazz to this test flight, it also signals breathtakingly controlled they a shift in the space industry. The private touched down almost simultaneously. sector is bringing the power of commercial three wasn’t so lucky – although it competition into an industry historically run correctly broke away from the rocket’s upper by national space agencies. It has energised section (containing the sportscar) it was only the rocket business. to relight one of three engines needed to land, missed its landing pad and hit the ANOTHER GIANT LEAP FOR MANKIND? Atlantic at 300mph. But hey, two out of three The upper stage of the rocket – the chunk ain’t bad, right? containing the Tesla – made it into space. A long way into space. After a six-hour coast, The Falcon Heavy boasts other money- the engine restarted. The Tesla was pushed saving features that make it (relatively) more into an elliptical deep space orbit, aiming affordable. SpaceX streamlines its production to take the same journey Mars takes around

Falcon Heavy is the most powerful operational rocket in By SpaceX - Falcon Heavy Demo Mission, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=65212857 CC0, Mission, Demo Heavy Falcon - SpaceX By the world by a factor of two

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