SpaceX Launches First Falcon Heavy Mission, After 3 Years: SpaceX‘s Falcon Heavy, the world’s most-powerful active rocket, lifted off for the first time in more than three years on Tuesday from Florida’s Cape Canaveral, with Elon Musk‘s company sending a group of satellites into orbit for the U.S. Space Force.
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About The Rocket System:
The rocket system, representing three Falcon 9 boosters strapped side by side, bounces on SpaceX’s launch pad. The rocket had to make a synchronous landing on a concrete slab along the east coast of Florida about eight minutes after lifting its two side boosters. The Heavy carried a handful of classified payloads toward geostationary orbit for the U.S. Space Force on a mission called USSF-44.
USSF-44 is the fourth launch for the SpaceX Falcon Heavy overall and its first since June 2019. That low flight rate stands in stark contrast to the company’s Falcon 9 workhorse, which has flown more than once per week this year on average. And while the overwhelming majority of those Falcon 9 launches have used pre-flown boosters, Falcon Heavy launched on three brand-new first stages.
About The Past Falcon Missions:
Past Falcon Heavy missions have also attempted landings of the central booster on one of SpaceX’s automated drone ships in the Atlantic Ocean. However, the mass and orbital requirements of USSF-44’s payloads mandated that the core booster for this mission forgo landing and future re-use in order to dedicate maximum fuel for a direct insertion into geostationary orbit, about 22,000 miles (35,400 kilometers) above Earth.
The Falcon’s Debut:
The February 2018 debut of Falcon Heavy famously launched SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s cherry red Tesla Roadster into interplanetary space with a mannequin named Starman strapped to the driver’s seat, wearing the same kind of SpaceX flight suit worn by Crew Dragon astronauts. Falcon Heavy flew again in April 2019, when it launched the big Arabsat-6A satellite, and then again in June 2019 for a mission called STP-2.
The Other Heavy Rockets Are In Line:
There are two massive rockets poised to surpass the Falcon Heavy as the most powerful operational rocket in the world, though. NASA’s Space Launch System, or SLS, rocket, which is currently slated to attempt its inaugural launch later in November to send the uncrewed Artemis 1 mission around the moon, is sitting in the Kennedy Space Center’s towering Vehicle Assembly Building, which lies just a few miles from the launch pad where the Falcon Heavy will take flight.
And just across the Gulf Coast, At SpaceX’s experimental facilities in South Texas, the company is in the final stages of preparing for the first orbital launch attempt of its Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket. Although the test aircraft is still awaiting final approval from federal regulators, it could begin flying before the end of the year.
