Problems, Persistence, and Promise

The strange, halting dance the Pentagon, the United States Space Force, and SpaceX have been doing around the latter’s Falcon Heavy launch vehicle has recently shown signs of evolving into a comprehensible, mutually beneficial, and perhaps even breathtaking enterprise. 

Space Force asserted in an August statement that Falcon Heavy could yet conduct its first launch for the U.S. Military prior to the end of 2022. The news is apt to thrill SpaceX engineers and fabricators eager to send aloft a rocket that hasn’t flown since June 2019, yet stick in the craws of SpaceX investors who’d anticipated 2022 would see Falcon Heavy rockets carry aloft the US military’s USSF-44, USSF-52, and USSF-67 missions—all of which are now in varying states of delay.

Notwithstanding the aforementioned scrubbings, Space Force’s USSF-67 mission is alleged to be sufficiently near operational status to engender expectations that it may well launch in the fourth-quarter of 2022.

Also made public in the August statement was Space Force’s decision to permit SpaceX to make use of previously flown Falcon Heavy boosters—with U.S. military oversight—on upcoming Department of Defense launches.

The US military will likely retain the ability to veto or modify SpaceX’s booster assignments and reuse sequencing, but Space Force maintains it is confident that the “recovery, refurbishment, and launch of SpaceX boosters utilizes well-established processes.”

Space Force previously approved the use of flight-validated (read “used”) Falcon 9 boosters on military missions. To date, several such launches featuring hybrids of new and pre-flown boosters have been successfully carried out. That Space Force would authorize similarly broad allowances for Falcon Heavy is of little surprise in light of the vehicle’s similarity to its Falcon 9 progenitor.

Space Force’s sanctioning of booster-assembly reuse is apt to streamline SpaceX’s pre-launch preparations, and dramatically shorten the Falcon Heavy inter-launch interval. Alacrity and economy stand to be further advanced by the Pentagon’s warranting the military use of Falcon Heavy boosters previously flown on private sector space-launches—but that’s a campaign SpaceX has yet to undertake.

To the subject of 2022 private sector Falcon Heavy launches, only ViaSat’s ViaSat-3 geostationary communications satellite still appears to have a shot at so slipping Earth’s surly bonds before year’s end. EchoStar’s Jupiter-3 commsat and NASA’s Psyche asteroid explorer are expected to fly aboard Falcon Heavy vehicles in 2023’s first and third quarters respectively.

FMI: www.nasa.gov