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Possibly DOD securing all FH9 launches given no other available vehicle?Psyche is delayed.
Psyche launch rescheduled for October 2023
A NASA mission to an asteroid that missed its launch window this fall because of technical issues has been rescheduled for launch next October.spacenews.com
Another FH launch delayed because of the payload:
spacenews.com
ViaSat-3's Falcon Heavy launch slips into early 2023 - SpaceNews
Viasat said Nov. 8 its first ViaSat-3 broadband satellite will not be ready to launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket this year.
spacenews.com
Hummm... annual price adjustments maybe, but it's not like they are turning away business due to lack of capacity. In other words, what is their damage to the delay?
Sure, but with SpaceX their launch cadence and build rate plus commonality (everything but center core) along with lead time of payloads means they will launch something in the available slot even if it's not external revenue.
Close in delays should get a fee, but at what time till launch does a FH payload even show up on the build/ test schedule?
And imagine if it is a shared payload, then a single payload delay, impacts all the payloads on that rocket. A delay on F9 launch does not have a lot of compact, but not so for an FH launch. You line up the contractors, get a slot approved from myriad govt agencies, and all that has to be redone again.
There are contractural mechanisms that govern delays on both sides. That said, schedule is very much weighted on the customer side, with many many months of flexibility (and sometimes up to a year) before any financial hardship...at least for a commercial launch. (One of the reasons a government procured launch pays more than an equivalent commercial launch is for more flexibility in launch schedule). Anyway, in the contract there's basically a countdown timer where the customer has to define launch criteria with progressively more fidelity as launch gets closer; schedule is one of those criteria. This allows the launch service provider (LSP) to manage their manifest with pretty high fidelity for at least a year out. The LSP program manager will also have recurring calls (as frequently as weekly) with the customer and generally those are frank discussions on schedule/readiness asthere's no reason for the payload to hide readiness from the LSP...so the LSP is well aware what their unofficial readiness looks like long before the contractural gates referenced above.
It's also not a great idea for the LSP to impose strict schedule requirements on the payload, as that will be contractually reciprocated in kind. That's a bad deal for the LSP, because any launch anomaly on their side will impact a bunch of customers and thus the LSP will be responsible for a bunch of LD's.
Good news for SX is that their internal demand from Starlink and overall high frequency of launches basically makes customer readiness largely a non-issue.
Launches always have a "Prime" customer and then potentially some "Secondary" customers. The prime pays the lion's share and also gets schedule rights. The secondaries save a few bucks but are beholden to the prime's schedule (and other things, like orbit). It's not quite a binary thing though--for instance on dual GTO launches they're never going to launch without both sats, and schedule rights (and corollary price) reflect that. But for other launches, like when there's one big prime and a much smaller secondary(ies), the secondary better show up on time or they don't go. For many secondary payloads, they're actually required by the LSP to have at the ready a reasonably high fidelity mass/intertial model (basically, a hunk of aluminum that represents the satellite) in the case the satellite isn't ready. The LSP will then bolt that hunk of metal on the rocket for the launch. This is because the launch loads analysis ("Coupled Loads Analysis" or CLA) have finalized and the mission profile and any specific tailoring (throttling the launcher motors, etc.) has been set based on that CLA.
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Typical commercial launch campaigns have the prime show up at L-28 or L-30, though some try to compress by a few days. FH vs F9 is not a factor--it's the same exact thing to the customer. That gives the customer time to unpack, setup, test the satellite (and launch vehicle umbilical), fuel the satellite (that in itself is 4 days), and make final preparations before the LSP takes over.
For government launches, especially ones that are more bespoke (so, not just based on some legacy/commercial satellite platform), campaigns can be longer, up to much longer. I've heard of 6 month campaigns, at least from back in the day...something like that includes a lot of actual assembly and test at the launch processing facility.
For secondaries, at least small secondaries (cubesats, some microsats, etc.), they often need to show up before the prime to get integrated onto their respective adapters. Part of this is just to eliminate the distraction of a possibly late secondary, part of this is because sometimes they're integrated in such a way that they need to basically be configured for flight before the prime starts their final launcher integration activities.
Launch delays fall into two categories: Act of God (weather) or Technical issues. Both of them typically amount to no more than a few days of delay. But payload delays are typically in months.. sometime years. Just to keep it in context
I’m talking launch anomalies, not delays. One launch anomaly that takes down the vehicle for months will ripple for a year or more.
Delays also often get horse traded away—a customer might commit to another launch (because as an operator they need to buy more launches anyway) in exchange for not paying LDs.
First launch was on this day 5 years ago.
I remember it like it was yesterday. As the FH lifted off I was dancing around my living room like a madman.
My wife, who works from home, was on a conference call with two colleagues. One of them knew nothing about SpaceX and didn’t care. The other one could not stop talking about the FH launch during the call. My wife was laughing, at me and the difficulty of conducting the work call!
I remember it like it was yesterday. As the FH lifted off I was dancing around my living room like a madman.
Amazing that it's been five years. I work for a organization with a lot of remote workers (even in pre-COVID days), so we had an impromptu, distributed Falcon Heavy watch party with a bunch of us kibbitzing on one of our internal Slack channels. Pretty sure SpaceX killed our productivity for about an hour or so.
Bruce.
On the other hand - I was there.
Hobnobbing with Bill Nye who was the chief guest entertaining us on his future projects and joining us all on the countdown along with thousand others at the Saturn visitor center. Loved every minute. Especially can’t explain the feeling of watching the twin boosters land with sonic booms.
What a day. Thanks Elon. He gave me a day I will never forget my whole life.
Hobnobbing with Bill Nye who was the chief guest entertaining us on his future projects and joining us all on the countdown along with thousand others at the Saturn visitor center. Loved every minute. Especially can’t explain the feeling of watching the twin boosters land with sonic booms.
What a day. Thanks Elon. He gave me a day I will never forget my whole life.
NASA Invites Media to Psyche Launch, Mission will Study an Asteroid - NASA
Media accreditation is now open for the upcoming launch of NASA’s Psyche spacecraft, for a mission to a unique metal-rich asteroid orbiting the Sun between Mars and Jupiter.
www.nasa.gov
Watts_Up
Well-Known Member
NASA Invites Media to Psyche Launch, Mission will Study an Asteroid - NASA
Media accreditation is now open for the upcoming launch of NASA’s Psyche spacecraft, for a mission to a unique metal-rich asteroid orbiting the Sun between Mars and Jupiter.
Schedule for: Thursday, Oct. 5 at 10:38 am
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