What SpaceX's Falcon Heavy launch means for the future of spaceflight

SpaceX had a pretty big day on Tuesday.

The Elon Musk-founded company successfully launched its maiden flight of the huge Falcon Heavy rocket and landed two of its three main boosters back on Earth after sending a Tesla Roadster to space.

With this launch, SpaceX and Musk effectively made a long-shot rocket dream come true before our eyes and made good on a promise made more than five years ago.

"We tried to cancel the Falcon Heavy program three times at SpaceX," Musk said during a briefing after the launch. The technical challenges associated with building the rocket were much worse than the company initially bargained for, but none-the-less, Musk and his team pulled through.

So now that the Falcon Heavy has one successful flight under its belt, what's next for SpaceX?

Well, a lot more flights of the Falcon Heavy, for sure.

A new space race

By proving to the world that the rocket works, SpaceX can now get on with the hard parts: flying it consistently and courting customers who need it for their heavy payloads.

At the very least, SpaceX has the Falcon Heavy's relatively low cost on its side.

"At $90 million per launch, it's also the cheapest heavy-lift option available. The Delta IV Heavy, for example, typically costs $350 million to $400 million per launch," space industry analyst Bill Ostrove said via email, referring to United Launch Alliance's rocket.

"A launch aboard others, such as the Proton and Long March 5, can be purchased for about the same price as the Falcon Heavy, but these rockets offer significantly less lift capacity. So in that sense, it will have a great effect on the market." Proton and Long March 5 operate out of Russia and China, respectively.

Even Musk agrees.

The billionaire entrepreneur hopes that the Falcon Heavy, and presumably everything else SpaceX has worked toward in the last few years, will spark something of a new space race. (That sentiment has also been echoed by Blue Origin and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in the past.)

In theory, the kind of competition presented by the Falcon Heavy — which is expected to launch again in about three to six months — could have a real effect on the industry as a whole, forcing companies to drive down the cost of launching to space.

"We want a new space race," Musk said. "Races are exciting."

A growing industry

The fact that Falcon Heavy launched at all represents the culmination of years of work for SpaceX, and it speaks to the wider industry's growth.

"The inaugural flight of the Falcon Heavy reminds me how rapidly the commercial space industry has grown in just the past 5 to 10 years," Phil Larson, a former communications employee at SpaceX who is now an assistant dean at the University of Colorado at Boulder, said via email.

"Insourcing a space transportation capability with rockets produced and launched from U.S. soil is important for our nation’s economic competitiveness and national security."

One person who appears to be excited about that is President Donald Trump.

Congratulations @ElonMusk and @SpaceX on the successful #FalconHeavy launch. This achievement, along with @NASA’s commercial and international partners, continues to show American ingenuity at its best! pic.twitter.com/eZfLSpyJPK

& Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 7, 2018

Trump tweeted
his congratulations to Musk and SpaceX on Tuesday night after the launch, and the president has long-touted the benefits of public-private partnerships — like those between NASA and SpaceX — as the future of spaceflight.

That future would allow NASA to focus on big missions to the moon and beyond and leave operations around Earth to companies like SpaceX.

That said, the Falcon Heavy isn't exactly the launcher nations and companies have been clamoring for. It's going to have to carve out a niche for itself.

"The Falcon Heavy is in search of a market for itself. SpaceX has gradually improved the Falcon 9's launch capability over the years, so that it can accommodate most payloads," Ostrove said.

"At the same time, small satellites have grown more popular, so the need for a heavy lift launch vehicle is not quite as important as it was when introduced in 2011."

Getting ready for the next one.

If nothing else, getting the Falcon Heavy operational at least helps make way for SpaceX's next project.

To hear Musk tell it, the Falcon Heavy's launch and development effectively clears the way for SpaceX's next big ambition: The Big Falcon Rocket (or Big Fucking Rocket, Musk never said it's a Falcon).

Musk thinks that the company will be able to start investing more into the BFR now, with test flights — for this one, just short hops off the ground before coming back to Earth — starting as soon as next year or so.

The rocket will be SpaceX's most powerful yet, with 31 engines and a huge spaceship designed to bring people deep into the solar system.

By investing more in the BFR, that means that the Falcon Heavy won't need to be rated for human spaceflight, allowing it to function as a cargo vehicle to deep space.

"There are a lot of uncertainties on this [BFR] program, but it is going to be our focus now," Musk said, explaining that the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy programs won't need as much support going forward.

"I think it's conceivable that we do a first test flight [to Earth orbit] in 3 or 4 years," Musk added.

We'll see how that prediction holds, and maybe in 2021 or 2022 SpaceX will show us something new.