Name: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy Is Launching One of its Most Complex Missions Yet
Uploaded: 2020-03-31T07:21:52.000Z
Duration: 9 min 54 s
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For the third time, SpaceX is launching the most powerful operational rocket in the world.

The Falcon Heavy stands at 70 meters tall, packs-in 5 million pounds of thrust at liftoff,

Adverbs of degree

AND can carry nearly 64 metric tons in payload into low earth orbit; more than twice its

The mission is already checking off a lot of “firsts”, not only for the groundbreaking

experiments onboard that we'll definitely get to later, but also for SpaceX.

The Falcon Heavy made some astounding accomplishments in the last year, starting with its debut

And just recently in April 2019, the Falcon Heavy had its first commercial launch and

the mission successfully landed all three of its boosters, including the difficult landing

of its center core on the off-coast drone ship, Of Course, I Still Love You, a first

Now those same rockets are going to be reused as the side boosters for the next Falcon Heavy

If SpaceX pulls off the Department of Defense's Space Test Program 2 mission, the rocket will

blaze the trail for SpaceX to fly humans to the moon, and one day, even Mars.

This STP-2 launch is a first with the DoD and U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems

Center, and the experiments within the payload range from those put forth by government facilities

like NASA and NOAA, to the U.S. military and even research projects from universities.

In total, the payload is filled with 24 different sized satellites, making this deployment one

of the most diverse ever. And deploying all of these satellites will be among the most

complex tasks in SpaceX's history and everyone is watching for their success.

But what makes this launch even more special isn't just that it's such a huge defining

moment for SpaceX, it's also because of what the Falcon Heavy is carrying.

On board, this hefty vehicle are three experiments that if successful, could alter how we explore

Firstly, LightSail 2 will be the first solar sail spacecraft to orbit the earth, next up is the Green Propellant

Infusion Mission testing their alternative rocket fuel, and lastly the Deep Space Atomic

Clock which will help spacecraft with more precise and autonomous radio navigation. But

let's start with the one that sounds the most science-fictiony, but is definitely  reality.

Solar sailing is technology using the sun's light to propel spacecraft; no fuel, no expelling

It's actually photons which have no risk mass, but in relativistic land, they actually carry

So as the photons hit something, in, particularly if they hit and bounce off, then you end up

getting a momentum transfer that pushes your spacecraft.

When you get into the vacuum of space, that push actually becomes significant.

For this mission, LightSail 2 is encapsulated within a spacecraft built at Georgia Tech,

inside Prox-1, and will deploy at a height of seven hundred and twenty kilometers above

the earth—the optimal range for solar sailing.

So we're trying to demonstrate that we actually are doing controlled solar sailing by raising

the orbit, or more formally, increasing the orbital energy.

And what we're looking for is anything measurable.

We have all retroreflectors on there, and the International Laser Ranging service will

be shooting lasers at it and then measuring the time to come back.

That may give us an indication very quickly within a couple of days if it works.

If successful, LightSail 2 will become the first spacecraft in Earth's orbit to fly

on sunlight alone, and this would be a gamechanger for nanosatellites like CubeSats.

These already cost-effective satellites won't have to carry fuel.

And this will enable them to live longer lifetimes, or tackle more challenging orbits, which will

then change the way we explore space entirely.

This tantalizing future of space travel is probably why the project has gotten so much

support over the years and means so much to the LightSail team.

LightSail 2 is also different because it is completely funded by individuals, more than

40,000 people have contributed money to the LightSail project.

So it really is the project that represents a huge interest in space exploration.

If you're lucky you might just be able to see this historic mission in orbit while it

But LightSail 2 isn't the only experiment onboard with the goal of more sustainable

NASA is collaborating with Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation and Aerojet Rocketdyne

to create the Green Propellant Infusion Mission or GPIM.

For over ten years, researchers have been developing a new low-toxicity, propellant

Essentially, what makes this fuel better than hydrazine is that it's over 40% denser,

which means we can store more of it in the same size containers, and whereas hydrazine

needed the lining of its containers to be constantly warmed, AF-M315E can't freeze.

Which requires less power from the spacecraft to maintain the fuel's temperatures.

Basically, it yields higher performance, it's cheaper, it's less toxic, and researchers just

And if it does, we'll be able to travel further into deep space than ever before.

But, as with any spacecraft, we also need to be able to control and navigate where it's

going, and that's the goal of the Deep Space Atomic Clock.

This mission aims to give spacecraft the autonomous ability to calculate its own trajectory with

the use of an atomic clock in conjunction with an onboard Artificial Intelligence system.

The Deep Space Atomic Clock is the very first ion-based space clock, the first that can

keep time very stably that's small enough that we can send it in a space, it's about

50 times more stable than the GPS clocks, the cesium rubidium clocks.

Stability for this atomic clock means that it should only lose a second in 10 million

And that's important because a second can mean landing on Mars or missing your target

The success of its timekeeping is due to the mercury ions involved in the technology, which

What's really cool about using ions is that we can trap them electromagnetically to confine

them in a vacuum tube and confined them by EM fields.

So they're not actually hitting the walls of their containment trap, which essentially

means that the clock is much more stable over long periods of time.

And its performance is on par with the atomic clocks that we use on the ground in the Deep

But they're the size of a refrigerator, so not really something that we can send on a spacecraft.

The Deep Space Network is the world's largest and most sensitive scientific telecommunications

It's made up of 3 facilities placed very strategically around the world so we

never lose a connection with a spacecraft.

But right now, it's a two-way relay system to give spacecraft directions, which can take