Friday, December 29, 2017

SpaceX's Falcon Heavy Rolls Out To Launchpad

Hawthorne-based SpaceX has moved the Falcon Heavy, the new, heavy lift capable rocket it is developing, to a launch pad in Florida for the first time, as it gets set for its first test flight to space. According to Spaceflight now, the Falcon Heavy was placed on Launch Pad 39A at NASA Kennedy Space Center on Thursday, as SpaceX plans to start testing for a launch sometime in January. A formal launch date has not yet been announced. SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk said in early December that it would be sending a red Tesla Roadster into orbit around the planet Mars for the first test of the rocket. The Falcon Heavy will be the largest, rocket to be created since the Saturn V moon rocket. If successfully put into operation, the Falcon Heavy will have the ability to deliver twice the payload capacity of any other rocket currently in use. The Falcon Heavy uses three of the booster rockets used in the Falcon 9: SpaceX also plans to land the first stage of all of those rockets back on earth after the launch.