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SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy eyed by Europe/Japan as ULA nails spectacular Delta Heavy launch

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8 years ago

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According to RussianSpaceWeb, SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket is under serious consideration for launches of major European and Japanese payloads associated with the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway (formerly the Deep Space Gateway).

Currently targeting launch readiness in the mid-2020s, those heavy scientific and exploratory government payloads are eyeing Falcon Heavy at the same time as the United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) Delta IV Heavy – the most powerful operational rocket prior to FH’s debut – is busy wrapping up a scientific launch for NASA and prepping for another launch in September for its singular anchor customer, the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).

https://twitter.com/_TomCross_/status/1028599075002896384

A breathtaking mission to the sun

United Launch Alliance (ULA) has just completed the ninth successful launch of its Delta IV Heavy rocket, originally developed by Boeing in the 1990s and debuted in 2004 before the company’s launch vehicle subsidiary joined forces with Lockheed Martin’s own rocket branch. Delta Heavy’s August 12th mission saw the rocket send a small NASA payload known as Parker Solar Probe (PSP) on a trajectory that will eventually place the craft closer to the Sun than any human-made object before it. In pursuit of a better understanding of how exactly our solar system’s namesake functions and behaves, PSP will also become the fastest object ever created by humans, traveling at an extraordinary 200 km/s (120 mi/s) at the zenith of its deepest periapses (the point at which PSP is closest to the sun).

In a fitting send-off for the small heat-shielded spacecraft, Delta IV Heavy’s launch was a spectacle to behold, with clear skies and the cover of darkness combining to magnify the best of the rocket’s telltale features. Upon ignition of its three massive RS-68 rocket engines, each producing over 700,000 lb-ft of thrust, the rocket is held down for several seconds in a process that famously culminates in what appears to be self-immolation just before liftoff, a consequence of the rocket burning off excess hydrogen fuel expelled during the ignition process. Unlike Falcon 9’s dirtier kerosene-oxygen combustion, Delta Heavy’s hydrogen and oxygen fuel produce a flame that is nearly transparent, aside from a bright orange tint created by materials in each engine’s ablative (read: designed to disintegrate) nozzle.

While Delta IV Heavy has used one of its other nine successful launches for a NASA payload (a test flight of the Orion capsule), all seven remaining missions were conducted for the USAF (1) and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO; 6), and all six remaining missions on the rocket’s manifest also happen to be for the NRO. Put simply, Delta IV Heavy would not exist today if the NRO did not have an explicit and unflappable need for the capabilities it offers. The primary downside is cost: DIVH costs at least $350 million and usually more than $400m per launch. Thankfully for ULA, the NRO has very few problems with money, and the agency’s estimated annual budget of $10 billion (2013) is more than half of NASA’s entire budget.

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After Falcon Heavy’s successful debut, Delta IV Heavy’s monopoly over heavyweight NRO and USAF payloads is rapidly coming to an end, and both agencies are almost certainly attempting to equally quickly certify SpaceX’s newest rocket for critical national security space (NSS) launches. With that influx of the slightest hint of competition, Delta IV Heavy’s ~$400 million price tag starts to look rather painful in comparison to Falcon Heavy’s cost ceiling of around $150 million, potentially much less in the event that 1-3 of its boosters are recoverable. That competition likely won’t kill Delta IV Heavy, thanks entirely to the anchor support of the NRO, but it most certainly will guarantee that Delta Heavy is retired the moment ULA’s next-gen Vulcan rocket is ready to take over, likely no earlier than 2024.

Falcon Heavy may look for more condensed than Delta Heavy, but its performance dramatically outclasses the ULA rocket in all but the highest-energy mission profiles. (SpaceX)

Outside of the NRO, however, there is a surprising amount of interest in Falcon Heavy for interesting (and heavy) government payloads, particularly with respect to the NASA/ESA/JAXA/Roscosmos cooperative lunar space station, known as the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway.

Falcon Heavy enters the mix

The first payload considering Falcon Heavy for launch services is the Japanese Space Agency’s (JAXA) HTV-X, and upgraded version of a spacecraft the country developed to assist in resupplying the International Space Station (ISS). HTV-X is primarily being designed with an ISS-resupply role still at the forefront, but Russianspaceweb recently reported that JAXA is seriously considering the development of a variant of the robotic spacecraft dedicated to resupplying the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway (LOPG; and I truly wish I were joking about both the name and acronym).

As the name suggests, LOPG is fundamentally a shrunken, upgraded copy of the present-day International Space Station but with its low Earth orbit swapped for an orbit around the Moon. Why, you might ask? It happens that that question is far less sorted at this point than “how”, and there’s a fairly strong argument to be made that NASA is simply attempting to create a low-hanging-fruit destination for the chronically delayed SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft it routinely spends ~20% of its annual budget on. The alternatives to such a crewed orbital outpost are actually landing on the Moon and building a base or dramatically ramping development of foundations needed to enable the first human missions to Mars.

Regardless of the LOPG’s existential merits, a lot of energy (and money) is currently being funneled into planning and initial hardware development for the lunar station’s various modular segments. JAXA is currently analyzing ways to resupply LOPG and its crew complement with its HTV-X cargo spacecraft, currently targeting its first annual ISS resupply mission by the end of 2021. While JAXA will use its own domestic H-III rocket to launch HTV-X to the ISS, that rocket simply is not powerful enough to place a minimum of ~10,000 kg (22,000 lb) on a trans-lunar insertion (TLI) trajectory. As such, JAXA is examining SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy as a prime (and affordable) option: by recovering both side boosters on SpaceX’s drone ships and sacrificing the rocket’s center core, a 2/3rds-reusable Falcon Heavy should be able to send as much as 20,000 kg to TLI (lunar orbit), according to comments made by CEO Elon Musk.

That impressive performance would also be needed for another LOPG payload, this time for ESA’s 5-6 ton European System Providing Refueling Infrastructure and Telecommunications (ESPRIT) lunar station module. That component is unlikely to reach launch readiness before 2024, but ESA is already considering Falcon Heavy (over its own Ariane 6 rocket) in order to save some of the module’s propellant. Weighing 6 metric tons at most, Falcon Heavy could most likely launch ESPRIT while still recovering all three of its booster stages.

Regardless of the outcomes of those rather far-off launch contracts, it’s clear that some sort of market exists for Falcon Heavy and even more clear that its injection of competition into the stagnant and cornered heavy-lift launch segment is being globally welcomed with open arms.

For prompt updates, on-the-ground perspectives, and unique glimpses of SpaceX’s rocket recovery fleet check out our brand new LaunchPad and LandingZone newsletters!

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Eric Ralph is Teslarati's senior spaceflight reporter and has been covering the industry in some capacity for almost half a decade, largely spurred in 2016 by a trip to Mexico to watch Elon Musk reveal SpaceX's plans for Mars in person. Aside from spreading interest and excitement about spaceflight far and wide, his primary goal is to cover humanity's ongoing efforts to expand beyond Earth to the Moon, Mars, and elsewhere.

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Elon Musk

The Starship moon landing number NASA and Elon Musk can’t agree on

Musk disputes NASA estimate of 22 Starship launches for Moon landing, predicting 6 to 8.

Published

17 hours ago

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October 22, 2026

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Concept rendering of SpaceX Starship landing on the moon via Grok

Elon Musk is disputing a new NASA safety panel estimate of how many Starship launches it will take to put astronauts on the Moon, saying the real number will be less than half the panel’s figure.

On Thursday, NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel held its quarterly public meeting. Panel member Charlie Precourt, a former NASA astronaut, flagged the fueling process for SpaceX’s lunar lander as a major risk for Artemis IV, the mission planned to land a crew on the Moon in 2028. “We need to keep our eyes on numerous required fuelings for the lander,” Precourt said, according to Ars Technica. “I think the last estimate is around 22 flights.”

Ars Technica’s Eric Berger posted the comment on X, and Musk replied. “That’s way too high,” Musk wrote. “Actual number will be more like 6 to 8.”

The disagreement comes down to a basic problem with sending a ship as large as Starship to the Moon. Starship burns nearly all of its propellant just reaching Earth orbit, so it cannot continue on to the Moon without stopping for a refill. SpaceX’s answer is a gas station in space. First, a Starship that works as a storage tank, called a depot, is launched into orbit. Then a series of tanker Starships launch one at a time, dock with the depot and pump their leftover propellant into it. Once the depot is full, the lunar lander version of Starship launches, docks, fills up and heads for the Moon.

Every tanker trip is its own full rocket launch, which is why the count matters. More launches mean more time, more cost and more chances for something to go wrong before astronauts ever leave Earth. Berger estimated that even if SpaceX reaches twice weekly Starship launches by the end of 2027, filling a depot at the panel’s number would still take roughly three months.

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How many tankers are needed depends mostly on how much propellant each one can carry to orbit and how much is lost along the way. Starship’s fuel and oxygen are stored at extremely cold temperatures, and some of it slowly boils off while waiting in orbit. More is lost in each transfer. NASA appears to be working from what Starship can lift today, while Musk’s range assumes a more capable rocket.

Musk has pushed back on higher counts before. In 2021, after a government document suggested 16 launches, he called that “extremely unlikely” and said eight tankers would be the most required.

Much of the answer depends on hardware SpaceX has not finished flying. As Teslarati noted earlier this year, the company plans to carry out the refueling process with its upgraded V3 Starship, and Precourt described Artemis IV as carrying “a large number of firsts.” He also praised NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman’s team for working to clear obstacles for both SpaceX and Blue Origin, whose Blue Moon lander does not rely on orbital refueling for its first mission.

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News

SpaceX confirms Starship 15 launch window with massive ambitions

Published

2 days ago

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October 21, 2026

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Credit: SpaceX

SpaceX confirmed the date of Starship’s 15th launch window with some massive ambitions for the mission, as it will attempt to catch Ship for the first time.

CEO Elon Musk confirmed during SpaceX’s Earnings Call last night on October 20 that it would launch Starship for its 15th test flight in November, and there are some incredible things the company wants to try, making it perhaps the most groundbreaking launch in the program’s history.

SpaceX delivers blockbuster Q3 results as Super Intelligence segment booms

The most major development of the call was SpaceX’s intention to catch Ship alongside catching the Super Heavy Booster, something that has happened in the past. SpaceX showed an animation of the Ship catch, which will be done on the launch tower’s chopsticks:

This monumental goal is to catch both the Ship and Booster in a dual-catch scenario, an incredible feat since SpaceX has never been able to reuse a Ship after launch. Musk said it would be “the first time that an orbital launch vehicle has been fully recovered,” and said it would be a “profound technology milestone.”

Musk said the odds of success on this first Ship catch attempt are “more likely than not,” but SpaceX is ultimately prepared for more tries moving forward. The SpaceX frontman said that, starting next year, Starship would have a “steady stream” of flights through the end of the year.

The cadence will accelerate in 2027, with Musk stating the company plans to target weekly flights in the first half of 2027 and twice-weekly by year-end.

The Flight 15 attempt follows that of Flight 14, which took off in late September and was Starship’s first orbital mission. It deployed 26 Starlink V3 satellites, accomplished a controlled ocean splashdown of both stages, and shed more light on potential challenges for the program moving forward.

As of now, the Starship program is firing on all cylinders.

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Investor's Corner

SpaceX stock gets a slew of price target boosts after bullish earnings call

Published

2 days ago

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October 21, 2026

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Wall Street analysts rapidly raised price targets on SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) after the company reported a bullish third quarter for 2026 following the market close on October 20. Shares were sent sharply higher in after-hours and premarket trading.

SpaceX posted revenue of $14.6 billion, a 161 percent year-over-year increase that comfortably topped consensus estimates, which fell near $12.7 billion. The company also posted a net profit of $4.4 billion from a prior-year loss, with adjusted EBITDA reaching $8.8 billion.

Its Super Intelligence (AI) division generated roughly $7.6 billion and became the largest revenue contributor, growing nearly 830 percent year-over-year, while the Connectivity segment delivered $5.2 billion on strong subscriber additions that lifted the consumer base to 13.6 million for Starlink.

The Earnings Call proved especially catalytic, as CEO Elon Musk and CFO Bret Johnsen outlined Q1 2027 revenue guidance of $33 billion to $37 billion, which was far above the roughly $22 billion analysts had modeled, alongside fourth-quarter capital-expenditure plans of $35 billion to $40 billion focused on AI compute infrastructure at sites including Memphis and Southaven.

SpaceX delivers blockbuster Q3 results as Super Intelligence segment booms

Management targets 2.5 to 3 gigawatts of nameplate compute capacity by year-end and discussed pathways to 13 gigawatts or more by the end of 2027. Musk described relentless demand from hyperscalers and other customers, with compute pricing supporting payback periods of less than a year and potentially as short as six months.

Additional highlights included Starship’s recent orbital success and V3 satellite deployment, Starlink pricing and enterprise momentum, rapid Grok Bot adoption, spectrum expansion plans, and the formation of special committees to explore a possible combination with Tesla.

These elements prompted a wave of price-target increases:

  • JPMorgan more than doubled its target to $500 from $240 while maintaining an Overweight rating.
  • Cantor Fitzgerald lifted its target to $345 from $246 (Overweight).
  • Barclays raised its target to $300 from $254 (Overweight).
  • Citi increased its target to $240 from $200 (Buy),
  • UBS moved to $230 from $210 (Buy), and
  • TD Cowen raised its target to $224 from $200 (Buy).
  • Morgan Stanley held an Overweight rating with a $300 target.
  • Other firms also adjusted higher, including Wells Fargo (to $274 from $214) and Clear Street (to $248 from $217). Analysts broadly cited the strong quarterly print, accelerating AI compute expansion, Starlink progress, and Starship milestones as drivers of higher long-term growth and earnings power.

Shares, which closed at $147.79 on October 20, jumped roughly 8 percent in early premarket trading on October 21 as investors digested the results and the newly elevated Street targets.

The average analyst price target has moved higher, which reflects greater conviction in SpaceX’s trajectory across launch, connectivity, and the Super Intelligence business, even as elevated spending remains a point of focus.

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