When Pierre de Coubertin proposed the Olympic motto in 1894, man had barely begun his conquest of the skies beyond a few metres off the ground. More than a century later, Citius, altius, fortius Or, in other words, “Faster, higher, stronger” It could also be the motto that currently encourages the space race.
SpaceX's Falcon Heavy marks a significant milestone in the current space race, open to new players and a new market.
This is a competition where it's no longer just two superpowers participating, which was the scenario we had when man reached the Moon. Now, several countries have the capability to send spacecraft into space. A good number of private companies and businessmen have also joined them, seeing in space A commercial opportunity to be exploited. Which, in fact, it is.
The latest milestone in this race is very recent. We were recently able to witness live the first launch of the Falcon Heavy. This is a super heavy-lift reusable launch system, which has been financed, designed and built by the company SpaceX.
Your low Earth orbit payload is nearly 64 tonnes, almost tripling that of its smaller brother, the Falcon 9. Its objective is, with an eye on trips to Mars, to have a launch system that allows heavy payloads to be carried into space. It is important to note that to reach the red planet, the system's payload capacity is reduced to some 17 tonnes.
Apart from its capabilities, the most important thing about this release has been The scheduled recovery of the initial stages of the rocket. With millimetre precision, they were detached and returned to Earth, landing smoothly in their programmed locations. This fact is key to reducing the price of future launches, which could lower their cost by approximately 30%.
The payload This test flight was symbolic, a Tesla vehicle with a dummy inside, and at least two more launches are already planned for 2018, with payloads paid for by customers.
Another noteworthy aspect is how the way these advances in the space race are communicated has changed. Unlike last century, when superpowers maintained almost total secrecy about their progress or launches, information now prevails. Before, they competed with each other while now they compete for a market. The public exposure of the entire launch process, its protocols, and the live testing to confirm that everything worked as their engineers had designed (with the inherent risks that entails) is the best publicity this type of company can have to win new clients in the conquest of space.
Citius, altius, fortius It could, indeed, be a motto to consider in this new space race.
You can watch videos on the development of Falcon Heavy, as well as its first launch, on the SpaceX YouTube channel. To access it, go click here.
