On February 6, 2018 (December 21, 2017 in the lunar calendar), the Heavy Falcon was successfully launched. Heavy Falcon launched successfully On February 6, 2018, the world's most powerful launch vehicle in active service, the Heavy Falcon was successfully launched at the Kennedy Space Center on Cape Canaveral, United States. This is also the launch site of the Apollo spacecraft of the US lunar exploration project, which is of special significance. The Heavy Falcon delivered 5 million pounds of thrust, equivalent to the thrust of 18 Boeing 737s combined. Take the Tesla Roadaster across the sky and run into space! Musk said: The Heavy Falcon will bring Tesla runners to Mars orbit. The Heavy Falcon was launched successfully. The Heavy Falcon was launched successfully. The Heavy Falcon's two booster rockets were successfully recovered, but the intermediate stage rocket in the three-stage rocket failed to recover. There is a feeling that the Heavy Falcon was launched successfully. The Heavy Falcon was launched successfully. There is a dummy on the Tesla sports car. The sports car reads the famous sentence from the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy":"Don't panic" The aerospace industry is an arduous challenge. Musk once said before: Even if the Heavy Falcon did not blow up the launch pad, it would be a success. However, the heavy falcon lived up to expectations and soared into space. Next stop: Mars, the Tesla sports car is estimated to remain in orbit on Mars for a billion years. Perhaps it is a special guiding light. The latest news is that this sports car has crossed the orbit of Mars and drifted towards the asteroid belt. Can this luxury sports car safely pass through the asteroid belt and stay in orbit of Mars for a billion years? I think Musk is a businessman who is really amazing. His advertising effect is so good that he can even brag about it on the promotional page: Tesla is the fastest car in the world. After all, in space, at more than 10 kilometers per second, even the top racing cars on earth can't compare. As soon as this unprecedented advertisement was launched, many people have a strong interest in Space-X's future space tourism projects. After all, the experience of "flying" on a rocket can be talked about for a lifetime, and the colonization of Mars and the establishment of a human advancement base are still in the stage of drawing a cake and out of reach. The feasibility of space tourism is currently the most reliable among Space-X's many projects, and it is also a very promising market. The picture Musk posted on Twitter not only has huge commercial interests, but also private enterprises 'participation in aviation is very helpful for military-civilian integration. In fact, military-civilian integration in the United States was also forced out. Military giants such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin have joined forces to engage in monopoly. Such a large enterprise has made the entire aerospace system less and less efficient, and NASA has to endure expensive launch prices. Now a private company founded by Musk has broken the monopoly and shown people the possibilities of commercial rocket launches. It is indeed exciting. Not only is the cost reduced, it means that the "great voyage era" of space exploration is getting closer and closer to us. The circuit board of the Tesla sports car read "Made by Humanity on Earth" from the end of the 15th century to the early 16th century. At that time, the vast sea was still an unknown challenge to mankind. With human navigation technology and shipbuilding technology, great breakthroughs have been made. People began to cross the ocean to explore unknown areas on the earth, and the world map has become more and more complete. Now that we have satellites, GPS, God's perspective maps are fully opened, most places on the earth are marked by human activities, and the human scientific and technological tree has begun to move towards the next new stage. In this era of rapid iteration of knowledge and explosive growth of technology, the trend of "exploration of the universe" is becoming more and more clear. Heavy falcons have made more people realize that humans are busy competing for the few resources on earth all day long, forgetting to raise their heads 45° and look up at the stars. There is still a magnificent journey waiting for us in the unknown distance! So how did the Heavy Falcon succeed and why the launch price is so cheap? Let's analyze it with everyone today. How low-end engines can create miracles This heavy Falcon is the rocket with the strongest low-earth orbit carrying capacity among active rockets, with a carrying capacity of 63.8 tons. In the history of human space, it is second only to the Saturn V used by Apollo to land on the moon and the Soviet Union's Energy rocket. Such a strong rocket must have a powerful engine, right? Not really ~ As we all know, the engine is the most critical factor in determining the performance of a launch vehicle and the basis for designing a rocket. Without the right engine, there is no rocket, because launch vehicles are almost designed around the engine. In the static ignition test, the Merlin engine used by the Falcon 9 rocket has a sea level specific impulse of only 275s, and the sea level thrust is equivalent to about 66 tons. The reliability is indeed good. After all, the Falcon 9 has been successfully launched so many times. However, its indicators are very backward and it is not a powerful rocket engine. It should be said that it is already very powerful for a private enterprise to build such a powerful rocket engine, but it is still far from the world's advanced level. You may have questions: Why can the Heavy Falcon become the strongest rocket in active service? The quality is not enough, so the quantity is enough! In fact, this routine was also used by the Soviet Union before. It was the exaggerated 30 parallel N1 rocket. The first stage of the N-1 rocket was connected with 30 NK-15 engines in parallel. As a result, four launches and four explosions occurred, making the Soviet Union's manned moon landing plan completely ruined. Now that the heavy Falcon rocket has 27 engines in parallel, aren't you afraid of repeating the mistakes of the Soviet Union? Musk made some changes to the Soviet Union's N1 rocket. Although the heavy Falcon has 3x9 =27 engines, it uses the method of connecting three Falcon 9 rockets in parallel, with each Falcon 9 rocket having 9 engines, which is very different from 30 N-1 rockets in parallel in one rocket. The Heavy Falcon's solution has much less technical risks. The Falcon 9 has been launched many times. It is very reliable and has mature technology. The Merlin engine has been improving and has high reliability. However, the three Falcon 9 rockets are tied together. It is still a crazy idea. It will have coupling resonance problems, which no country in the world has ever done before. The efficiency and reliability of a rocket with more than 10 engines will be reduced. Musk didn't believe in evil and tried it. He didn't expect that a private enterprise would realize a plan that the Soviet Union had failed to achieve with the efforts of the whole country. It was really amazing. There is another small detail in the launch process, which is core stage throttling. The so-called "core stage" refers to the rocket in the middle of the three rockets. During the ascent process, it can be clearly seen that the power of the core stage rocket is lower than that of the two booster rockets next to it., cleverly solving the problem of cross resonance. Core-stage throttling. The picture comes from the successful launch of the 36Kr Heavy Falcon, Space-X's unique skill of "rocket recycling", which is naturally indispensable. This is also the first time Musk has tried to recover two rockets at the same time. The effect is amazing. The two first-stage thrusters landed intact almost at the same time, and the live video is very science fiction. And these two rockets are old rockets that have been used once! Using second-hand rockets for this important task, it seems that Musk is quite confident in the quality of his recycled rockets. The launch was not 100% perfect. There was a problem with the recovery of the core rocket. According to the original plan, it was necessary to reignite three engines. However, according to subsequent reports, there was an accident in the core stage and only one engine was ignited. Unable to complete the deceleration, the rocket eventually fell into the sea at a speed of 300 miles per hour. It's strange that the core rocket fell into the sea. The rocket in the middle was the brand new Falcon 9, but it failed to recover. However, the other two second-hand rockets were successfully recovered ~ Not only were they successfully launched, but the heavy Falcon launch cost is also very low. Here you can see the benefits of choosing a "popular commodity" like the Merlin Engine. Even the latest version of the Merlin 1D is estimated to cost only one million US dollars. In comparison, the price of the SSME engine with better performance is in the tens of millions of US dollars. Moreover, aerospace kerosene as fuel is more affordable than the liquid hydrogen used by SSME. I feel that Space-X uses low-end engines to complete unprecedented tasks, which tells us one truth: weapons and equipment must not blindly pursue advanced technology, which will lead to a misunderstanding. It is okay to study new technologies, but when entering service, we must emphasize the final practical effect. As the saying goes, all roads lead to Rome. Our eyes should not be limited by technology. The same is true for problems encountered in life. Try to think from different angles and don't get into dead ends and can't get out.