| Issue 4 | Volume 149 | Tuesday, February 13, 2018 | theavion.com |
Vipul Telang, Nick Hernandez, and Samantha Stirmel /The Avion Newspaper
“The Falcons Have Landed”
The World’s Most Powerful Rocket Lifts off, Carrying Our Future Samantha Stirmel Business Manager
What’s Inside
Falcon Heavy, the rocket that was almost canceled three times by the SpaceX company, lifted off Tuesday, Feb, 6 from pad LC-39A at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral Florida. With Elon Musk's midnight cherry Tesla Roadster loaded in the payload bay and thousands of people flooding beaches and viewing spots all near Cape Canaveral. Blasting off into the atmosphere, Falcon Heavy trailed fiery flames behind it as it reached higher and higher. Some noticed that the core booster did not fully ignite all of its thrusters. However, this did not slow down the rocket, and the launch. Both side boosters landed soon after separation and drifted back to earth before coming to rest almost simultaneously on SpaceX's landing pads. Musk informed the press that the boosters had a staggered landing, so the radars would not get confused. The core booster followed several minutes later, sadly, to a watery disintegration. In the press conference afterward, Elon Musk informed the press that the core booster had smashed into the water of the Atlantic about 100 meters away from the drone ship. When coming into contact with the water, it was estimated that the core booster hit the water at about 300 miles per hour. The force was enough to shred it com-
Two-Step Aggravation
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pletely, turning it into shrapnel that was showered on the deck of the drone ship, and taking out two of the ship's thrusters. Both side boosters are reusable and will be used again in a future launch, but the loss of the core booster has no impact on the next launch, as it wouldn’t have been used anyways according to Musk. As everyone exited the island after the launch, many were privileged to see live views from Musk's roaster drifting in space. When the video feed flashed to see the dashboard, one could see a screen that displayed a message: "DON'T PANIC." The dummy astronaut sitting in the driver seat of the roadster was dressed in SpaceX’s new spacesuit that they had finally finished developing after three years. Several modifications were made to the car, including a message on one of the motherboards inside that said, "Made by Humans." Also featured on the dashboard is a special edition mini of the Musk’s Roadster by Hotwheels, which was mounted on the dash. Musk's Roaster was playing Space Oddity on its way up; however, it only could for 12 hours because that is how long the car batteries were limited to. Sadly, the Roadster will not be landing on Mars anytime soon as the window of opportunity for it exceeded the expectations. By the time the Roadster does get close to Mars orbit, it will be a billion years later and will probably be decimated by radiation by the time it gets there.
Because of the success of the Falcon Heavy, Musk expects there to be about a dozen more launches within the next two to three years. Now that Falcon Heavy has turned into a success, SpaceX will be focusing almost all of their efforts on the Big Falcon Rocket, or BFR. Musk expects that within the next year they will be experimenting with "hopper flights" for BFR, increasing in perplexity. These hopper flights will start over land at their Brownsville location, before expanding to ship to ship jumps, and then launching into the atmosphere and plummeting back down to better test the heat shield.
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SpaceX's plan is to have a reusable heat shield teamed with the boosters and fairing recoveries to continue their path of reusing parts of the rockets. This represents a brand new chapter for SpaceX and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. SpaceX has had one of their most successful launches yet and the crusade for the BFR has commenced. This means new jobs for engineers and many more launches. BFR will also have spots for new astronauts and will be taking them to the Moon before continuing onto the goal since the beginning: Mars. Falcon Heavy paves the way for a greater tomorrow.
Photo Courtesy: SpaceX The Falcon Heavy booster cores touch down in a historic first at SpaceX Landing Complex 1
ARCA Race Coverage
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