After the “Launch Vehicles Under Development saga”, it is time to start a new one: the “SpaceX saga”. In the rocket industry, SpaceX is undoubtedly one of the major actors with 183 successfully completed launches in the last 13 years. The most popular rocket SpaceX, and maybe the world, only second to the Space Shuttle and Saturn V, is Falcon 9.
In this Technical Capsule, we will compare Falcon 9 to its big brother: Falcon Heavy. They are very similar on many levels, but they also have some essential differences. So let’s check the differences and the similarities of the two SpaceX rockets: Falcon 9 vs Falcon Heavy.
Falcon 9 vs Falcon Heavy: Differences
Launch “numbers”
The first and most evident difference between the two rockets is the number of launches: Falcon 9 is the most launched among the active rockets, with 178 successful launches, while Falcon Heavy has flown only 3 times. The number of failures tell us the great reliability of SpaceX, which has a success rate of 98.4%: one failure every 62 launches!
| Falcon 9 | Falcon Heavy | |
| Successful Launches | 181 | 3 |
| Failures | 3 | 0 |
| Maiden Flight | Jun. 4th, 2010 | Feb. 6th 2018 |
| Next Launch | Oct. 14th 2022 | Oct. 31st 2022 |
In my opinion, it is really interesting to see the SpaceX’s statistics and compare them with other operators; I recommend visiting our Report page.
Falcon Heavy is already part of history
As I said before, Falcon Heavy launched only three times, but each of them were milestones in the rocket history.
The first iconic launch is the maiden flight, on Feb. 6th 2018: SpaceX launched, as dummy payload, the “Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster” in a trans-Mars injection heliocentric orbit.
Another historical moment is related to the second launch of Falcon Heavy, when the boosters both landed simultaneously: the most touching landing I’ve ever seen!
You can check here the Falcon 9 schedule and the Falcon Heavy schedule to stay up-to-date on the next launches. You can also check our page a few minutes before liftoff and find the link for the live coverage: we recommend both!
Boosters and Capacity
The most noticeable difference is the fact that Falcon Heavy has two boosters, while Falcon 9 has zero. We will be back on the boosters in the next paragraph. What interests us here, instead, is to point out that the presence of the boosters enables Falcon Heavy to have a capability two/three times larger than Falcon 9’s. In the following table the rockets’ capabilities are reported.
| Capability | Falcon 9 | Falcon Heavy |
| to LEO, 28.5° | 22.8 t | 63.8 t |
| to GTO, 27° | 8.3 t | 26.7 t |
| to Mars Transfer Orbit | 4 t | 16.8 t |
| to Pluto | 3.5 t (!) |
Falcon 9 vs Falcon Heavy: Similarities
The question now arises: with all these differences, what are the similarities? As I said in the introduction, Falcon Heavy is the big brother of Falcon 9. But let’s go deeper! If you look carefully, you can appreciate that the central part of Falcon Heavy is very similar to Falcon 9; and in fact, they are, basically, the same.
The two Falcons are 70-meters, two-stage rockets. The first stage is powered by 9 Merlin 1D engines with a maximum thrust of 97.6 MN and a specific impulse of 282s at the sea level. These engines work with LOX (Liquid Oxigen) as oxidizer and RP-1 as fuel. The second stage is, instead, powered by one Merlin 1D vacuum engine, with a maximum thrust of 934 kN and a specific impulse of 348s.
But the similarities are not over… Did you notice that the boosters are very similar in the main core? Same length and same diameter, and even same thrust! In fact the boosters and the main core are designed in the same way: 9 Merlin 1D engines power every booster.
Finally, Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy are designed to be partially reusable, with the recovery of the boosters, the first stage, and the fairing envelope being fully so. Their reusability makes them very appealing in the rocket industry. And in this context…
Cost: similar or different?
The launch cost is the turning point between the two Falcons; in fact, the cheapness of Falcon 9 makes it very affordable and, as a consequence, more used. The price of a reusable Falcon 9 is about $50 million. Falcon Heavy, on the other hand, costs about $95 million, in its reusable configuration.
Here, we can end our first comparison between the SpaceX rockets. Are you curious to read the comparison Falcon Heavy vs Starship? Check it out!
The rendez-vous is for next week, here at impulso.space, as always. Leave us a comment in the chatbox if you want to know more about these rockets, and if you have some topic you want to read about.
