Chris Bergin has the story on current status of modifications at the Cape. Launch “as early as next summer.”
Let’s hope.
[Update a few minutes later]
Related: ESA and Arianespace seem to have settled on the design of their next obsolete launch system.
“Falcon Heavy’s three first stages are also expected to sport landing legs, along with an ambition to return back to land once they’ve completing their primary role of pushing the second stage and payload passenger uphill.”
I don’t think the -center- stage will have legs. It should be closer to ‘reaching space’ than to landing anywhere. Yes?
It will have farther to fly back, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be capable of it. Just a matter of how much propellant it has at separation, which is a function of payload. Some missions will have to expend the stage. They’ll charge more for it.
I think that upper stages can be reused in space. They might tug other satellites in GEO and even be refueled. Why bring down what has painstakingly been put up there?
I think cancelling the Ariane 5 ME is a big mistake. Changing the Ariane 6 design is a good idea but they are doing it wrong.
By the time Ariane 6 is developed and flying SpaceX will probably have a rocket with the Raptor and even the Chinese will have a better rocket than what is being proposed by ESA and Arianespace. I also highly doubt the rocket will be any cheaper let alone half the price per kg as they claim.
I guess they increased the total payload as a a response to Falcon Heavy being developed.
The mantra of “half the price” is a dead giveaway of naivete on the part of ESA. It’s been used by every low-cost launch aspirant in history (trust me on this one).
However, I think the one thing that will scare people away from ESA/Arianespace faster than anything else is a face-to-face with Brigitte Zypries. Yaaahhhh! I met her in a nightmare once!
Off the topic of Falcon Heavy, but has anyone heard any news about the SpaceX pad abort test? The last I heard, they wanted to conduct it before the year was out. There isn’t a lot of year left and they still a Falcon 9/Dragon launch scheduled.
I was wondering about it as well, given that they had been launching at a rapid pace, more than one per month, and then there was nothing scheduled for November even though their launch manifest still has supposedly nine flights left to do this year. And now they have cancelled one of their two December launches. So the launch pad abort test had been my guess.