How much electricity is used in the entire production and launch process of Falcon 9 (launcher, propellant, etc.)? What about other rockets, like the Ariane 5?
4
-
4$\begingroup$ Are you including the office building(s) lights and computers, lights in the parking lot, charging up Teslas to drive to work, etc? $\endgroup$– Organic MarbleCommented Jun 28 at 18:59
-
1$\begingroup$ legitimately this could be somebody's academic thesis. $\endgroup$– Darth PseudonymCommented Jun 29 at 1:34
-
3$\begingroup$ People have been trying and failing to calculate this for cars for decades. Given that we have no way of doing this for cars, and with the added complication of ITAR and National Security restrictions for rockets, I highly doubt this is answerable. $\endgroup$– Jörg W MittagCommented Jun 29 at 13:26
-
1$\begingroup$ Is the premise that there is something inherently different about rocket production that would cause there to be more or less electricity used producing them than other types of vehicles like cars, planes, ships, buses, trains etc? $\endgroup$– Steve PembertonCommented Jun 29 at 15:44
Add a comment
|
1 Answer
$\begingroup$
$\endgroup$
This question might need to be answered by the "community as a whole" because it involves several processes, and each requires specialized knowledge to answer. So, I'll invite anyone to edit and improve this answer if they happen to have some of that specialized knowledge. For now, this will be a partial and unfinished answer. (If you don't have enough reputation to edit, just leave a comment.)
I think we can work through this by starting with the heaviest components of the rocket and working our way down to the lightest.
Liquid Oxygen
According to this source...
Liquid oxygen is a cryogenic liquid. Cryogenic liquids are liquefied gases that have a normal boiling point below –130°F(–90°C). Liquid oxygen has a boiling point of –297°F (–183°C).
Oxygen is produced by an air separation unit (ASU) through liquefaction of atmospheric air and separation of the oxygen by continuous cryogenic distillation. The oxygen is then removed and stored as a cryogenic liquid.
The ASU manufacturing process begins with a main air compressor.
Some additional research or specialized knowledge will be needed to determine how much electricity that compressor uses per kg of oxygen produced. But then we would multiply that figure by the mass of oxygen in the rocket and include a factor to account for boil-off.
First Stage: 245620L*1.141kg/L = 280252 kg
Second Stage: 146020L*1.141kg/L = 31948 kg
Total: 312200 kg
Fuel
We also need to obtain a number for the amount of electricity per kg needed to produce and cool the RP1 fuel to cryogenic temperatures. Then we can multiply that number by the amount of fuel.
First Stage: 146020L*0.81kg/L = 118276 kg
Second Stage: 17000L*0.81kg/L = 13770 kg
Total: 132046 kg
Aluminum
Aluminum production uses a lot of electricity, and the Falcon 9 is mostly made out of aluminum. According to this source
Aluminium production is energy intensive. About 17,000 kWh of electricity are required to produce 1 tonne of aluminium.
This is 17 kWh per kg.
First Stage Dry Mass: 25,600 kg
Second Stage Dry Mass: 3,900 kg
Total: 29,500 kg
Total Energy: 29,500 * 17 = 501,500 kWh
However, keep in mind that the first stage is usually reused, so we will need to apply a factor to account for that.
Manufacturing
Other
