Since the Falcon Heavy is just essentially 3 Falcon 9s strapped together, would it be possible to reuse them as Falcon 9s with some modification?
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3$\begingroup$ Possible duplicate of Is it possible the Falcon Heavy Demo flight could be done with three previously flown boosters? (albeit in reverse, but I think that's a legitimate transform on the question). $\endgroup$– Nathan TuggyCommented Feb 8, 2018 at 5:37
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$\begingroup$ @StanleyPowers See for example this answer in particular. It was written with your question in mind. Welcome to Stack Exchange by the way! Don't worry if your question is closed, the idea is to point future readers to the best answers. Feel free to ask more question! $\endgroup$– uhohCommented Feb 8, 2018 at 6:03
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1$\begingroup$ it's a different question, even if it is answered over there. $\endgroup$– user20636Commented Feb 8, 2018 at 8:16
1 Answer
The sideboosters can be reused as a F9 1st stage booster, as they are only slightly modified (nosecone & attachement). The reverse was done during the FH Demo Flight: The sideboosters were both flightproven.
The center core however is a little more tricky. It was completly redesigned to handle the additional forces from the side boosters. Since it is attachable to the second stage, it is still possible but it is not very reasonable: The dry weight of the center core is higher and therefore, performance is worse. That wouldn't be an issue on most payloads, but they are also more expensive to make. Therefore they'll be probably only used for FH where they are required. It just wouldn't make sense to use them for a single stick F9.