Musk explained why SpaceX is not afraid to launch a rocket with 27 engines

SpaceX has successfully launched its Falcon Heavy heavy rocket into space. This is indeed a major achievement in the development of near-Earth space and more or less distant regions from Earth. Earlier, Musk said that he believes the probability of failure during the first launch is very high. However, everything worked out. The only thing is that the central level broke, but this is not at all fatal. Most likely, during subsequent launches, the company will learn to return all three stages without damage.

In an interview, Ilon Musk said that launching a rocket with 27 engines is a complicated process. If something goes wrong, then the rocket does not fly anywhere. And the problem is that a lot of things can go wrong here. As we see, the company and its engineers coped with this. The other day, the head of SpaceX was asked why it was decided to make the rocket so complicated, because there were already precedents when the heavy launch vehicle did not fly anywhere due to the large number of engines and the total design.

We are talking about the Soviet carrier rocket "N-1" , which was called the "moon". With its help, the USSR planned to send people and equipment to the moon. But four test launches (1969-1970) were unsuccessful and it was decided to close the project.

One of the problems is that the launch vehicle was made according to a sequential layout and operation of the steps. The design included as many as five stages with oxygen-kerosene engines. The design of such engines was undertaken by the aviation engine Kuznetsov Design Bureau, which managed to achieve maximum efficiency of this type of engine. Unfortunately, the power was still not enough, so I had to place a large number of engines.

In the future, this design had a negative effect on the work of the entire rocket. On separate stands, the tests went smoothly. But the problem was not in the engines, but in their number. During the rocket launches, unrecorded problems arose - vibration, hydrodynamic impact when the engines were turned off, unwrapping moment, electrical interference. The reason was that all the engines were working at the same time, plus the rocket was very large. All four H-1 test launches failed in the first stage.

So, in the above-mentioned interview, Mask was asked if he sees a problem in that the previous carrier with a large number of engines was never able to reach the calculated flight parameters. He replied in the negative, because modern technologies make it possible to avoid, if not all, then at least some of the problems encountered by Soviet designers.



For several years, Musk argued that assembling the first three stages together allows the rocket to provide the required launch power. And 27 engines - ideal for overcoming gravity. Moreover, if in the Soviet rocket all engines had to work perfectly, then Falcon Heavy has an alternative - if even one or several engines fail, the rocket will continue to fly anyway.

Musk compared the architecture of the carrier with the computing power of modern telecommunications giants. Capacities are distributed around the world, and not gathered in one place. And if a certain number of elements fail, the system still remains operational. Previously, this was not, because the computing power was collected in a single design - for example, the mainframe. If something went out of order in it, then the work of the entire system stopped.

So with the engines - the design of the rocket is modular, so to speak. And if something goes wrong in one of the modules, all the others, as well as the rocket, continue to operate normally. The current design of the Falcon Heavy provides for the possibility of failure of 6 engines. If everyone else works, the rocket will be able to complete the task.

Now the Mask company continues to work on creating an even more powerful launch vehicle called the Big Falcon Rocket (or BFR). There will already be not 27, but 31 engines, and they are much more powerful than the Falcon Heavy. The BFR's Raptor engine develops thrust twice as strong as the Falcon Heavy 1-D carrier Merlin.