Table of Content

# Falcon Heavy

Falcon Heavy is the outcome of Space-X’s venture to take humans to space through a Reusable Launch Vehicle. The Falcon 9 derivative Heavy, has the same built as Falcon 9 with an addition of 2 boosters to its side. The boosters used are first stages of Falcon 9 which individually have the thrust capacity of 8400kN and the addition of 2 such boosters will increase the overall thrust capacity of the first stage to about 24000 kN in Vacuum. With the increase in thrust and thereby the thrust to weight ratio, Falcon heavy can carry payloads of about 63800 Kg, which amounts to 30% increase of payload capacity compared to Falcon 9.

## Vehicle Desciption

### First Stage (Solid boosters)

Two S-200 solid strap on boosters, each carrying 207 tons of solid propellant, are used to lift off the vehicle. Each solid booster is 25.7m long and 3.2m in diameter. These booster have a flex seal controlled nozzle that can be used for stearing the vehicle by gimbling the nozzle. The solid boosters burn for approximately 114-130s.

### Second Stage

The second stange called L110 is powered by two clustered Vikas engines, is 21.39 m long and 4m in diameter.

### Third Stage

The cryogenic stage is powered by CE-20 engines which produce a thrust of about 186kN, The stage is 13.5m long and 4m in diameter. This stage carries 27.5 tons of Liquid Oxygen and Liquid Hydrogen as cryogenic propellants. This had been the most challenging part for ISRO managing the propellant at its very low temperatures and its subsequent ignition and combustion.

### Fairing

Large fairing of 5m diameter and 10.7 m long and volume of 121 $m^{\prime}$. $\int_a^b \frac{c}{de}$

## Launches

### First Flight

Flight: GSLV MK-III X/CARE Launch date/time: 18 Dec 2014 09:30 IST Vehicle Variant: LVM3-X Payload: CARE (Crew module Atmospheric Reentry Experiment) Result: Success Mission Objectives:

• Test atomospheric regime of flight of the structure

The first experimental flight of GSLV MK-III designated GSLV MK-III X/CARE was successfully conducted from Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR, Sriharikota. This suborbital flight used a passive(dummy) C25 upper stage and was primarily conducted to test the complex atmospheric flight regime of the vehicle, validation of the new design features and study the re-entry charactersitics of the crew module CARE.

### Secong Flight

Flight: GSLV MK-III D1/ GSAT-19 Launch date/time: 5 Jun 2017 17:28IST Vehicle Variant: Mark III Payload: GSAT-19 Payload Mass: 3,136 kg Payload Orbit: Geostationary Orbit Result: Success

The first developmental flight of GSLV Ml-III/D1 was used to put GSAT-19 into a Geostationary Transfer Orbit(GTO) with perigee of 170kms and apogee of around 36000kms.

### Third Flight

Flight: GSLV MK-III D2/ GSAT-20 Launch date/time: TBD Vehicle Variant: Mark III Payload: GSAT-20

Megnonian Space Agency