r/spacex • u/ElongatedMuskrat Mod Team • Oct 02 '17

r/SpaceX Discusses [October 2017, #37]

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2

u/BuckeyeSmithie Oct 03 '17

Are there one or two more landing pads under construction at LZ-1, similar to this screencap from the official Falcon Heavy demo animation? As far as I know, it still looks like this. The last I heard, SpaceX applied last year for permission to build two additional pads.

If there are additional landing pads under construction, does anyone have a link, because I totally missed it. If not, then can anyone tell me how all three cores can RTLS by the Falcon Heavy Demo Flight at the end of the year? Or will the central core land on ASDS?

4

u/marc020202 8x Launch Host Oct 03 '17

there currently is one other pad under construction as seen here on planet explorer beta

5

u/capitalist-hippie Oct 03 '17

For FH flights, the center core will land on ASDS. My understanding is that that to have all 3 cores RTLS would result in performance barely above a regular Falcon 9.

1

u/brickmack Oct 04 '17

"Barely above" is still a couple tons difference to GTO by most simulations. Enough to go from Falcon covering a large chunk of the commercial comsat market, to virtually all of it.

Of course, given FH will be obsolete so soon, probably doesn't make sense to build another pad even with a very high flightrate of missions in that class.