# Musk throws car at Mars



## Veho (Feb 7, 2018)

The first launch of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket was completed successfully. 
-ish. 

The rocket uses re-usable stage 1 boosters that land safely after separation, and can be re-fueled and re-used, cutting down on the launch costs compared to the commonly used, "traditional" single-use boosters. 
Individual boosters had previously been launched and landed successfully. 
The payload was a Tesla Roadster car carrying a spacesuit-clad mannequin and playing David Bowie. It was supposed to reach a stable heliocentric orbit with its outermost point reaching the orbit of Mars around the Sun. 







#justgotup #nofilter​

Gallery of launch images: 

https://imgur.com/gallery/0h14b


The takeoff and separation were successful, the car and the stage 2 booster have reached the orbit successfully. Two of the three stage 1 boosters landed, the third, largest one (the center core) crashed into the sea next to the automated floating landing platform (droneship) where it was supposed to land, after its main braking thruster failed to fire. Navigational thrusters were able to lead it to the designated landing area, but not slow it down. 

The stage 2 booster completed the second burn however it now appears it pushed the payload to a higher orbit than expected, and the car's orbit will now reach the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. 

So all in all, not everything went according to plan, but this is still an amazing achievement and I'm looking forward to future launches. 



Meanwhile, back on Earth: 




Sources: 


https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/6/1...heavy-launch-success-roadster-orbit-elon-musk
https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/6/1...y-roadster-orbit-asteroid-belt-elon-musk-mars
https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/6/16980954/spacex-falcon-heavy-rocket-middle-core-failed-landing


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## dimmidice (Feb 7, 2018)

All a big publicity stunt really, and boy did it work.


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## Xzi (Feb 9, 2018)

dimmidice said:


> All a big publicity stunt really, and boy did it work.


It wasn't a publicity stunt, the launch and the recovery of two booster rockets was successful.  If they can reliably recover boosters, it dramatically decreases the cost of space launches.


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## TotalInsanity4 (Feb 9, 2018)

Xzi said:


> It wasn't a publicity stunt, the launch and the recovery of two booster rockets was successful.  If they can reliably recover boosters, it dramatically decreases the cost of space launches.


The whole "starman" part of it was for (fun) publicity, though, even though the main mission was indeed something productive


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## dimmidice (Feb 9, 2018)

Xzi said:


> It wasn't a publicity stunt, the launch and the recovery of two booster rockets was successful.  If they can reliably recover boosters, it dramatically decreases the cost of space launches.


I mean the car launched into space bit was definitely 100% a publicity stunt. People act like it's important and such but the car bit was completely meaningless. Fun and good PR though.


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## sarkwalvein (Feb 9, 2018)

On the one hand, it was a great demonstration of state of the art hardware, and a step forward in the development of space technology. On the other hand, yes, attached to it also was a superb publicity stunt, so beautiful that sure it made me want to buy a Tesla, Don't Panic edition, including the looping Space Oddity album; yeah, the publicity was superb.


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## Localhorst86 (Feb 9, 2018)

The Rocket needed a boilerplate for the test. Usually that's just a huge block of concrete or similar, SpaceX/Elon Musk decided to use an old Tesla Roadster for this. Not 100% a publicity stunt, but to some degree it certainly was just a bit of fun.

We can, however, question the degree of success of the mission.

- A Falcon Heavy consists of 3 Falcon 9 rockets put together
- A Falcon Heavy can lift a payload of 8t in a fully reusable configuration.
- A Falcon 9 can lift 8.3t in a fully expendable configuration
- SpaceX lost the center core which equals 1 Falcon 9

As a conclusion: Because SpaceX failed to land the entire first stage (all three cores) The mission can be clasified as a partial failure as one key aspect of the mission (retrieving all three re-usable cores) was not met. They could have lifted the same payload (and 300Kg more) with a regular Falcon 9 and the same end result.

For the mission to be a 100% success they would have had to clasify it as "semi expendable" - i.e. only the boosters being reusable and the center core being expendable, increasing the max payload of the Falcon Heavy to 16t


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## sarkwalvein (Feb 9, 2018)

Localhorst86 said:


> As a conclusion: Because SpaceX failed to land the entire first stage (all three cores) The mission can be clasified as a partial failure as one key aspect of the mission (retrieving all three re-usable cores) was not met. They could have lifted the same payload (and 300Kg more) with a regular Falcon 9 and the same end result.
> 
> For the mission to be a 100% success they would have had to clasify it as "semi expendable" - i.e. only the boosters being reusable and the center core being expendable, increasing the max payload of the Falcon Heavy to 16t


That could be said only if the objective of the mission was to put the payload into space economically and recover the falcons for reuse, if that was the case then yes, it might be consider a failure.

But actually putting a payload into space was only a trivial part of the test, not the objective of this flight.
The idea was to test many of the technologies look for weaknesses and improve, as e.g. the interaction between the side boasters and the central core, etc.

I mean, this was not a commercial launch, you can't evaluate it's success as if it were one. In any case, its success should be evaluated in base of how much useful data to verify or improve the systems were retrieved from the test.


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## Localhorst86 (Feb 9, 2018)

Yes the data received from this test flight is important and will tell SpaceX a lot. However, putting the payload into space and successfully landing all three cores were a big part of the mission, even though the capability of putting the payload into space and the Tesla not blowing up on the launch pad was the most important aspect. They are not just a simple byproduct of gathering data. Don't also forget to note that a depletion run of the second stage is also a somewhat important aspect for spacex in terms of gathering data.

Lets leave aside the fact that the falcons used in this demonstration are not intended to actually being reused, but they failed to demonstrate being able to fully recover it (Even though we all know full well that spaceX are capabable to land a Falcon 9 core successfully). Seeing as this is the only test launch of the Falcon Heavy currently scheduled before the first real payload in june I thnink that it needed to work 100% for it to be considered a 100% success.

Now, I am not sure if their next launch is going to bother with the landing of the cores as I am uncertain if the EELV certification process of the DoD includes this part. If I were a customer all I would care about is them getting my shit into space. Wether or not they fail to recover their launch vehicle seems not like a "me" problem.


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## Veho (Feb 9, 2018)

Localhorst86 said:


> If I were a customer all I would care about is them getting my shit into space. Whether or not they fail to recover their launch vehicle seems not like a "me" problem.


Being able to recover, refuel and reuse their launch vehicle would result in a significantly lower launch cost. To a potential customer, that's an important detail. We can already get shit into space, the problem is getting it there cheaply.


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## Localhorst86 (Feb 9, 2018)

Veho said:


> Being able to recover, refuel and reuse their launch vehicle would result in a significantly lower launch cost. To a potential customer, that's an important detail. We can already get shit into space, the problem is getting it there cheaply.


But that's SpaceX's calculation. I want to get something into space and SpaceX is quoting me a price for it based on their confidence in their launch vehicles being reusable. If, in the end, they fail to recover their center core, that's none of my business, they need a way to amortize it. They will lose their launch vehicles eventually, be it due to an accident or simply wear/age. But if they managed to get my shit into space for the price we agreed upon, I, as a customer, consider the mission a success even without them landing their rockets.

I agree that SpaceX being able to recover their cores is essential to making spaceflight cheaper. They haven proven themselves to be capable of doing so, too. But not on this flight.


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