SpaceX Falcon Heavy

This is the SpaceX Falcon Heavy at 1:110 scale - the same scale as the LEGO Saturn V set (21309).

The Heavy Falcon's maiden launch was on the 6 February 2018. It launched a test payload of Elon Musk's Tesla Sportster car which contained a spacesuited mannequin 'Starman' and played David Bowie's 'Space Oddity' on a loop.

SpaceX refer to the basic Falcon rocket first stage as a 'core'; three cores make up the first stage of Falcon Heavy with a total of 27 Merlin engines, generate 22,819 kilonewtons (5.13 million pounds) of thrust at lift-off. Shortly after lift-off the center core engines are throttled down. After the side cores separate, the center core engines throttle back up to full thrust. All three cores can be landed and reused.

The model has the Tesla Sportser and Starman as a payload. The Tesla was launched into an Earth/Mars orbit where it is set to circle the sun practically forever. The payload did hold something quite special, a small quartz crystal which can hold up to 360 terabytes of data stored in its structure. This is a very stable data storage medium with a projected life of 14 billion years. The Falcon Heavy's crystal contained Issac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy.

I have been very keen on building LEGO space projects to the 1:110 scale, as with a common scale the models can be compared to each other. I have included a photo of the Heavy Falcon next to the LEGO Saturn V and my own Mercury and Gemini designs.

To build an accurate model you need to take the main dimensions of the original vehicle, calculate the scaled dimensions and then fit them to the LEGO system dimensions. A 1x1 brick is 8 x 8 x 9.6 mm, and a plate is 3.2mm thick. 

Falcon Heavy Dimensions (scaled) [system]

Overall Height 70 m (636.4 mm) [66 bricks +1plate]

First Stage Height 41.2 m (374.5 mm) [39 bricks]

Interstage Height 47.7 m (433.6 mm) [45 bricks]

Core Diameter  3.7 m (33.6 mm) [4 studs]

Fairing Diameter 5.2 m (47.2 mm) [6 studs]

Total width 12.2 m (111 mm) [14 studs]

This model meets all of these key dimensions creating an accurately proportioned representation of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy in 330 LEGO pieces.

If you are interested in 1:110 scale  LEGO rockets then you may like some of my other projects - check out their update sections for even more building ideas.

NASA Rocket Garden

Mercury and Gemini

NASA: Skylab

NASA:Crawler Transporter