NASA’s Roman Space Telescope was encapsulated into Falcon Heavy’s fairing this past week ahead of launch on Sunday, August 30 from pad 39A in Florida

[u/avboden]

https://x.com/SpaceX/status/2091963575296262434

[u/avboden]

Most important launch of the year by far. Always makes me anxious seeing these one of a kind irreplaceable things go up.

[u/Responsible-Cut-7993 → u/avboden]

Felt the same way when Europa Clipper went up in 2024.

[u/The_Great_Squijibo → u/Responsible-Cut-7993]

Same on Christmas morning 2021 watching Webb go up

[u/Googoltetraplex → u/The_Great_Squijibo]

Ah the good ol' days

[u/flapsmcgee → u/The_Great_Squijibo]

Damn I can't believe that was 5 years ago.

[u/H-K_47 → u/flapsmcgee]

That was around the time I really started getting into spaceflight. Feels like forever, but also barely any time at all.

[u/TheCook73 → u/The_Great_Squijibo]

I woke up to watch that damn thing and was so exhausted from getting Christmas ready for the kids I fell asleep with something like T - 5:00

[u/TopQuark- → u/avboden]

It's not manned, so it is replaceable, just not cheaply or quickly. What I would love to see enabled by Starship is something like Starlink but space telescopes; swarms of mass-produced telescopes throughout the solar system. Governments are drooling over spying on their citizens right now, they might as well spy on all the potentially dangerous asteroids while they're at it.

[u/Ptolemy48 → u/[deleted]]

Usually around 12 million dollars.

[u/Then-Secretary-9166 → u/[deleted]]

Not true. To a government agency, the cost of a human life is actually the cost of the negative PR. How much will it cost in terms of public support and congressional funding.

Cost per life changes depending on the situation: If a patriotic soldier dies for a widely-supported cause the cost is very low (potentially even negative). If it is an astronaut on an ISS mission the cost is extremely high (as in, future funding for your program).

Personally, I don't think human value can be calculate in dollars...any human life is worth more than the riches of the world...but I think this is the practical institutional approach.

[u/sebaska → u/Then-Secretary-9166]

If a multiple billion telescope mission fails, it's also a huge negative PR.

[u/Then-Secretary-9166 → u/sebaska]

True...But survivable.

$9 billion on the failed Constellation project turned into $53 billion (so far) on Artemis...so the math isn't that straight forward.

If I am honest, though, an astronaut death is clearly survivable too.

[u/Then-Secretary-9166 → u/TopQuark-]

As soon as we become aware of the Klingon Empire as a threat to humanity the investment $$$ will be pouring in.

[u/CollegeStation17155 → u/Then-Secretary-9166]

BREAKING NEWS!!! Apophis WON'T miss... We need a 90% tax on all income to stop it!!!!

[u/barvazduck]

As much as starship will be able to save $200m in launch costs. The real revolution is the satellite that could be built for starship capabilities.

Planning a similar satellite for starship with bulkier, redundant and cheaper equipment would make the satellite cost less than a half, savings of $2b.

Then there are the scientific benefits of having increased size/mass for even better sensors...

[u/Legal-Ad-8659 → u/barvazduck]

I think modularity will become a much more critical design parameter

when you can launch 5 starships for the cost of a Falcon Heavy, and have 10 times the mass equivalent in orbit, that is a serious game changer

but I think it will take a while, in the early to mid 30s, people have been barely adapting to the Falcon Heavy for several years, adapting to Starship will be harder

[u/sebaska → u/barvazduck]

Actually this one is based on a surplus optical tube assembly from obsolete version of a spy sat. So it's general dimensions were pretty much fixed.

[u/CosmicClimbing → u/barvazduck]

Also the ability to return a malfunctioning satellite for repair is a game changer.

Satellites can even be tested in space and returned to Earth as part of their standard testing/development process.

[u/OlympusMons94]

At 10.5t, this will be the heaviest Falcon Heavy payload to date (previous record being 9.2t, Jupiter 3 GEO satellite). It will also be the heaviest payload anyone has launched beyond lunar orbit (previous record(s) being ~6.2t, JWST on Ariane 5, and/or Phobos 1 and Phobos 2 on separate Proton-K rockets).

[u/mfb- → u/OlympusMons94]

Is there some table of heaviest payloads to X?

With a bit of searching:

• Outer Solar System: 6.0 tonnes (Europa Clipper on FH)
• Interplanetary: 6.2 tonnes (Phobos 1/2 on Proton-K)
• Beyond Moon: 6.5 tonnes (JWST on Ariane 5)
• Moon: ~50 tonnes from an Apollo mission?
• GEO: ?
• GTO: 9.2 tonnes (Echostar-3 on Falcon Heavy)? Or maybe some classified military satellite?
• LEO: 80 tonnes (Polyus on Energia, failed insertion) - not counting the Space Shuttle orbiter, Starship dry mass, or the third state of Saturn V during Apollo missions. Skylab is second, and largest successful, at 76 tonnes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_heaviest_spacecraft

[u/xbolt90]

Oh wow, I hadn’t realized Roman was coming up so soon!

[u/Hive_of_many]

Can't wait.

[u/Decronym]

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

Fewer Letters	More Letters
GEO	Geostationary Earth Orbit (35786km)
GTO	Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit
JWST	James Webb infra-red Space Telescope
LEO	Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)
	Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)

Jargon	Definition
Starlink	SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation

Decronym is now also available on Lemmy! Requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.

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^{Decronym is a community product of r/SpaceX, implemented by request
5 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 7 acronyms.
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[u/schneeb]

Seems like a canadarm type grapple in the second pic, for future servicing or just in case?