Unusual! SpaceX Falcon Heavy In Big Trouble, Can't Launch This Year...

no more missions this year that sad truth is gradually becoming clear for spacex's Falcon heavy so many expectations were placed on this heavy lift rocket after the booming year of 2023 but what's about to happen may not meet those expectations but don't worry the real problem doesn't lie with the Falcon heavy itself so then why is this happening and does it affect Falcon Heavy's position in the industry let's find out on today's episode of great SpaceX 2023 can be considered an explosive year for all SpaceX Vehicles Falcon 9 continued to set new records Starship had its first integrated flights and that was the year Falcon heavy launched the most with five flights that's why entering 2024 when falcon9 and Starship both made progress in the first half of the Year people were also eagerly anticipating the Awakening of Falcon heavy the excitement was pal when this monster successfully launched the gesu mission on June 25th so what's next we all know that later this year Falcon heavy is planned for two more missions launching the Europa Clipper spacecraft to explore Jupiter's icy Moon Europa in October and launching the NASA Lander and Rover Griffin Viper to explore water ice at the South Pole of the Moon in November Falcon heavy Readiness was proved when just a week after the gesu mission on June 25th images showed that SpaceX had brought the core booster for the Europa Clipper mission b190 to McGregor and ran cryogenic tests side boosters for the two missions were also assigned including B10 64 and b1065 for Europa Clipper and b172 and b1086 for Griffin sadly there may be no more Falcon heavy missions this year firstly let's talk about the Europa Clipper Mission the spacecraft initiative has been planned for a long time but the project truly entered the preliminary design stage in 2017 this spacecraft received a lot of Investments with they cost up to 4.35 billion US in 2021 Falcon heavy was chosen to launch this spacecraft because of its advantages in launch cost along with SLS availability problems and other features during flight however by 2022 due to delays in installing instruments the launch schedule was pushed back to 2024 but a few days ago on July 11th NASA updated an issue related to the capabilities of this expensive spacecraft raising many doubts about the launch schedule specifically the agency said the issue with the transistors came to light in May when the mission team was advised that similar parts were failing at lower radiation doses than expected this is quite dangerous because the magnetic fields on Jupiter and Europa are 20,000 times stronger than on Earth and that could destroy vulnerable devices in spacecraft like transistors detecting the problem in in the final stages makes it difficult to resolve because modifying those parts is quite timec consuming but the time until the expected launch is only 3 months if this year's launch is not possible the mission will likely be moved to one of the next two years 2025 or 2026 but that will of course lead to increased costs and affect Mission progress a positive sign is that NASA later said they would soon complete a preliminary analysis by the end of July and still Target an October launch if the Europa Clipper Mission still has a chance to be resolved the hope for the Griffin Mission seems to be much lower during a July 17th teleconference and another update NASA decided to cancel the Viper Mission because of its high cost Viper is a lunar rover produced by astrobotic after the paragr lunarlander to explore water ice at the moon's South Pole paragr was launched on Ula Vulcan earlier this year while Viper was scheduled on spacex's Falcon heavy in November in the affir mentioned teleconference NASA revealed that they spent up to $450 million us on this lunar lander not including launch costs they say the cancellation will save the agency $84 million that huge cost is related to delays in the development process originally scheduled for launch in 2023 in 2022 it was pushed back to 2024 leading to increased costs Mission delays also came from the Griffin Lander which cost 322 million dollar under NASA's contract at the current progress Griffin is ready to launch no earlier than September of 2025 resulting in Viper costs that could reach up to $ 69.5 million if not cancelled such a schedule is because it also depends on suitable lighting conditions at the polar Landing site this is clearly a surprise because before this update this lunar Rover's progress was continuously confirmed to be very smooth at the same time as this update the car car sized Viper was fully assembled and was undergoing Environmental Testing all issues are only related to cost issues as NASA's budget will decrease in the coming years leading to costs allocated to many projects being sharply cut regarding the Viper Rover it can be sold or scrapped for use in future Vehicles meanwhile the Griffin Lander will still be retained but the chance for the launch later this year is extremely low in conclusion with the updates related to the two missions I think that in the best case Falcon heavy will only launch One mission most likely Europa Clipper but at worst there will be no more Falcon heavy missions launched this year hopefully those organizations will soon resolve the problem so that doesn't happen and how about you will Falcon heavy launch any more missions this year please respond yes or no in the comment section Down Below in the meantime obviously these issues will affect spacex's progress to date Falcon heavy has launched 10 missions of which 2023 is the most explosive year with five this year with three missions the tempo is already reduced and if those two missions cannot be implemented the Falcon heavy only has one Mission this year which means it will return to the pace of the years before 2023 in addition if no missions are launched SpaceX will also miss the opportunity to attempt Landing all three boosters of the Falcon heavy which was expected to be carried out on the Griffin Mission this is a very important step in spacex's reuse strategy something they have tried before but have not yet succeeded in achieving but looking forward these issues will not affect Falcon Heavy's future position but before we come to that please like the video share it and subscribe to our channel to continue following spacex's development Journey you can also comment heavy below to continue supporting this rocket the reason for my opinion is because the problems I have pointed out are not related to SpaceX instead they stem from payload issues these issues reflect inefficiencies in the development and cost management of NASA and their contractors meanwhile Falcon heavy still demonstrates High reliability after some issues with the core booster earlier this year the SpaceX team worked efficiently to successfully launch the weather satellite for NASA launch the weather satellite for NASA this achievement helped Falcon heavy reached the Milestone of 10 launches within around half a decade an accomplishment that not many Rockets especially heavy lift launch Vehicles can achieve and remember all 10 of these missions have been successful showcasing the absolute reliability of this rocket the only issue remaining is that Falcon heavy has yet to land all three boosters as mentioned before currently SpaceX is facing some issues related to Falcon 9 which has led to a temporary pause in its operations to investigate the mishap since Falcon heavy shares the same system it will also be affected the good news is that Falcon 9 can resume operation soon however the SpaceX team must thoroughly address all issues to ensure that Falcon heavy maintains the highest reliability for any upcoming missions as for the schedule if the missions planned for this year are not carried out they will likely be postponed to the following years this means that the pace will slow down but the missions are not entirely lost unless they are canceled completely this could lead to an explosive few years ahead for Falcon heavy potentially surpassing the activity seen in 2023 not only that SpaceX currently has several missions under contract from the ussf National Space security launch along with Falcon 9 Falcon heavy will continue to play a crucial role in fulfilling these missions looking ahead to phase three of the contract announced on June 13th the Pentagon has included SpaceX blue origin and Ula with at least 30 missions scheduled for Lane one although specific allocations have not been detailed SpaceX is likely to dominate its competitors this is because blue origin has yet to reach orbit and new Glenn won't launch before September of this year Ula which previously held a strong Market position has lost significant market share to SpaceX with its old Rockets being retired and Vulcan still awaiting launch certification given these factors SpaceX is expected to secure a significant share in phase three further solidifying Falcon Heavy's role in the industry it's truly sad because it's likely that Falcon Heavy's progress this year won't meet our expectations but don't worry I believe it will only be a slightly low tone before an explosive period that no one could have imagined Falcon heavy one of the three Monsters of the space orbital fleet will still maintain a solid position and lead the Aerospace industry for many years to come well folks that's about it for today's episode thank you so much for tuning in and as always this has been Kevin from great SpaceX until next time keep looking up