How Did Falcon 9 Beat Its Competition?

The Falcon 9 rocket is a two stage partially reusable launch vehicle manufactured and launched by SpaceX. This rocket is one of the most successful rockets to ever exist. Why did it become a thing? How is it better than the competition? And how is it so much cheaper than all of the other rockets?

The Falcon 9 rocket began to get planned in October of 2005. SpaceX planned to launch the first Falcon 9 in the first half of 2007, however the first launch would actually not occur until 2010. The Falcon 9 rocket took lots of parts from its predeccesor, the Falcon 1 rocket which had a single engine on the first stage, giving it its name, Falcon 1. Falcon 9 has nine Merlin engines on the first stage giving it its name, Falcon 9.

In 2008 SpaceX won a CRS contract in NASA's COTS (Commercial Orbital Transportation Services) and were to develop a spacecraft to carry cargo and supplies to the International Space Station. This gave Falcon 9 a big push forward so that they could start launching their spacecraft named Dragon into orbit.

Falcon 9 Rocket Launching Nilesat 301 Into Orbit

Falcon 9 flew on its first flight on June 4, 2010. Launch occured from Space Launch Complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The vehicle encountered an unexpected quick roll when getting off of the pad, however the enine gimbals counteracted and continued the flight. Twelve years after the launch, SpaceX CEO and Founder Elon Musk confirmed that the roll was due to the engines not being calibrated correctly, however they fixed inflight and the flight went good!

To this day the Falcon 9 has flown 162 launches, 161 of them being successful. That gives the overall program a 99.3% success rate! But how is this better than the competition? The Atlas V rocket has a 100% success rate, and other rockets have high success rates aswell.

The reason that the Falcon 9 is better than other competition is because the cost per launch (CPL) is so low that they can afford to launch all the time! The cost per launch of a Falcon 9 Block 5, which is the latest version and last version of Falcon 9, is 67 million dollars. That is very cheap compared to the space shuttle which cost 600 million per launch. Atlas V which costs 150 million dollars, and the Delta 4 Heavy rocket which costs 440 million per launch. The Falcon 9 is by far the cheapest and most successful rocket to currently be active and launch payloads to orbit.

Falcon 9 Rocket Booster Landing at LZ-1 (Landing Zone 1) on the Transporer-3 Mission

How is Falcon 9 so much cheaper than the other rockets though? The reason that it is so much cheaper than other rockets is because most of the materials for the rocket are produced inhouse. SpaceX also lands the Booster of the rocket on either landing zones or their ASDS's (Autonomous Spaceport Droneships) which can be positioned out at sea for the recovery of the rocket. This year (2022) they have flown 38 missions on the Falcon 9 rocket, and only 2 of those missions have flown on a brand new booster. This means that 36 of the 38 flights flown in 2022 have been flown on flight proven boosters. This is such a big deal because it can bring the cost down by a lot and help improve launch cadence.

That is how the Falcon 9 rocket ends up being so cheap, and reliable. Do you like the Falcon 9 and agree with SpaceX's goal of fully reusable rockets? Thanks for reading another article! If you like articles like these, you should become a website member. It is free, and you get access to exclusive posts, and access to the channels of our discord server which can provide you with exclusive photos.

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