SpaceX Falcon heavy rocket: link to Mars?

Falcon heavy to 117,000 pounds in the Umlaufbahn--twice the lift capacity of the NASA space shuttle launch. The new booster is supposed to lower launch costs of $10,000 to 1,000 dollars per pound orbit. The Falcon could put heavy fly satellites in Earth orbit and payloads to Mars.

The Holy Grail in planetary science is samples of soil and rock from Mars return. This is the best way, with today's technologies, to discover if there is life elsewhere in the solar system. Mission costs were however prohibitively expensive.

This would be to change.

By space exploration technologies (SpaceX), a heavy lift rocket was the cost of introducing payloads into space from the current rate of about $ 10,000 per pound to about $1,000 per pound, is cut, company founder Elon Musk said during Tuesday's announcement.

"I think, we can realistically start missions as a Mars look at sample return, an enormous amount of lift required is ability because you send with a Mars Lander still enough fuel to return to the Earth," said musk.

"If you try a mission as do that with a smaller, you have several starts and either do orbital rendezvous or some sort very much more complex mission," he said.

Launch costs can up to 20 to 25 percent of the budget for the launch of missions food, NASA associate administrator for science, Ed Weiler, told Discovery News.

"We are all praying that Elon Musk is successful and it not only delivers cheap launchers, but a secure Launcher." When he does, he will life for us a little easier to make, "Weiler said."

NASA is collaborating with the European Space Agency (ESA) on a three stage mission to rock and soil samples from Mars to earth back. The first leg of the journey would be targeted for launch in the year 2018, a Rover to Mars fly, which could collect and store samples for future pickup. A second ship would on Mars to pick up the examples and start them in the orbit of Mars land. A third craft would get the box of samples and fly it back to Earth.

Hamlet, said cheaper launchers plans the mission can not change, but it would certainly make more affordable to the endeavor.

"Rising start, which costs really start to do your ability, crimp missions," said Weiler.

The new SpaceX rocket, called heavy Falcon, is based on the company's existing Falcon 9 boosters, which buys NASA deliver cargo to the international space station (ISS) after the space shuttle - fleet is in this summer.

Falcon 9 has flown both successfully twice. In addition to government customers, SpaceX markets the Falcon family of rockets for commercial users.

Falcon heavy's debut flight is for 2013 from Vandenberg Air Force base in California. Operational missions are planned by SpaceX's Florida launch site.

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