SpaceX Falcon Heavy Launching Less?

I explain why we don't see SpaceX's Falcon Heavy fly more often!

#SpaceX #starship #elonmusk #starbase

Editing: John Young, Alex Potvin, Stefanie Schlang
Photography: John Cargile, John Winkopp & Stefanie Schlang
3D Animation: Voop3D
Script & Research: Nathan, Soren, Oskar Wrobel, Felix Schlang
LIVE Production: Astro Roadie, Jonahan Heuer
Host: Felix Schlang
Production: Stefanie & Felix Schlang
Graphics & Media Processing: Jonathan Heuer, Felix Schlang

Credit:

⭐SpaceX
⭐NASA
⭐VirtualSpace_3D on X: @Lolomatico3d
⭐The Ring Watchers on X: @RingWatchers
📄Links for this Episode:

[weshervey]

Yes and also there’s just not a lot of demand for flying stuff to geostationary orbit either

[slippymitc]

It turns out falcon 9 is almost a heavy lift vehicle all by itself

[johanmartijn]

Main problem is that Falcon 9 and FH have the same fairing size

[CobaltBob]

When starship is passenger ready, they'll finally be able to lift Lizzo.🚀

[CHMichael]

I have seen it from far away and you can see the booster seperate and come back down. Really cool ( sw Florida)

[goldgamercommenting]

At the time of this comment

Falcon heavy flown more than once in 2023, which means 2023 was falcon heavy’s golden age. So far we only had one launch but if the Europa clipper gets completed, falcon heavy will brutally roar once more. But there’s a cost to falcon heavy’s success…. Money…. Even though falcon was designed to be cheap but if you have three strapped then you have a problem. In short words, falcon heavy due to inflation is in between cheap and expensive. Poor guy.

[Reed]

Scott Manley did a great video on this a several years ago. Falcon heavy was at a severe disadvantage to the Delta rockets because Delta had larger faring sizes and a hydrogen fueled upperstage that could get more payload to geostationary orbit.

[SebastianWellsTL]

Falcon Heavy (FH) is objectively the best heavy lift option of its class. I think it's only a matter of time before FH sees more demand.

That being said if Starship becomes fully operational next year we probably will see FH phased out.

[wbwarren]

If falcon heavy does not have customers, why will starship? If starship is full, it might be less expensive per kilogram delivered to orbit than falcon or falcon heavy. But if starship is mostly empty, it won’t be. Also, the environmental impact of each starship launch will be much much greater than that of each falcon or falcon heavy Lodge. Please remind me, why is starship a good idea if it can’t get a lot of customers?

[sybergoosejr]

I’m still waiting on a center core recovered.

[yocto]

super cool how much spacex opened the door for other companies to have their product launched into orbit

[mico]

I'm worried then about lack of demand for starship

[Vermiliontea]

Exactly. Falcon9, with the Merlin 1D++, now lifts 17½ tons while still landing. Falcon Heavy is a bit on the expensive side, even with boosters landing. It's a hack to quickly offer the market a powerful lifter.

[anotherdave]

Falcon nine isn't cheaper, it's less expensive.

[EvanPang-wi]

Did the video get messed up or something? It’s not playing

[lindamartin]

Do your thang family it's working out for our good.

[EVILBUNNY]

Who’s responsible if the payload doesn’t make it to space?

[TarvosX]

I would guess something to do with the payload size or as you said F9 just being good enough that most people didn’t need the FH. Maybe it could also be that FH is used for higher orbits and most people don’t need that? FH is definitely the coolest option tho!

[OhioSoares]

Twice, there was a recent Europa Clipper

[charlieve]

I know this is old news, but in flight 3 when everything was floating around in space those little spots and specs. And everybody was saying it was to eat shield tiles. I think it was that blanket, that they put under the shield. That's what was breaking up. They didn't look like pieces of tiles. Or it was a mixed bag.