Falcon 9 Block 5 and Falcon Heavy Block 5 Launcher and Mission Analysis

Abstract

This report studies the new Block 5 variant of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy. It also summarises the upgrades included in the new model compared to the older Block 4 variant. For critical missions until August 2020, the mass breakdown and trajectories for both ascent and descent are studied in detail. Through the comparison of Dragon Supply as well as Dragon Crew missions to ISS, the flight profile for manned missions could be analysed. Starlink 7 was also studied to analyse the trajectory of the highest payload lifted by Falcon 9 so far without being expended. The recent launch to GTO, called Anasis-2 was studied to compare the mission geometry with the LEO missions of Falcon 9. The two commercial Falcon Heavy flights, Arabsat 6A and STP-2 were compared against the Test Flight to assess the improvement in performance due to the Block 5 upgrades. All three mission with different target orbits and complex mission profiles demonstrated a wide variety of capabilities of the vehicle ranging from reusability to multiple restarts during flight.