A successful launch from Elon Musk’s Falcon Heavy rocket

Category: Air traffic, Space

On a afternoon Tuesday above the Florida’s east coast, the world’s most powerful space rocket Falcon Heavy from the company SpaceX was launched into the sky.

The beaches was packed by people to witness the spectacular flame-heavy launch. Estimated half-million spectators watched the biggest fireworks show since the retirement of Nasa’s space shuttle fleet in 2011.

Musk’s $100,000 cherry red Tesla Roadster sports car, and a dummy in its driver’s seat was added to the Falcon’s upper stage and test payload.

Surreal quality to the triumphant launch gave the pictures of the car heading into space with the Earth below. From there, it will journey on through a six-month, 400m-kilometre trip to a solar orbit.

The United States will be provided by the Falcon Heavy heavy-lift capability in space not seen since the Saturn V rockets of the Apollo era. “Falcon Heavy heading to space on our test flight, building on the history of Saturn V/Apollo and returning launchpad 39A to interplanetary missions,” a SpaceX announcer said as the rocket lifted off, referring to the historic launchpad at the Kennedy Space Centre from which the first manned moon mission took flight in July 1969.

Recycling rockets, Musk said, compared with $435m for the launch of a Delta IV Heavy operated by the United Launch Alliance, the launch of the Falcon Heavy was $90m. Musk also added, the Falcon also possessed almost twice the payload capacity of the Delta. “If we are successful, it’s game over for other operators of heavy-lift rockets,” Musk said. “It’s like where one aircraft company has reusable aircraft and all the other aircraft companies had aircraft that were single use, and you’d sort of parachute out at your destination and the plane would crash land somewhere. Crazy at it sounds, that’s how the rocket business works.”

Source: theguardian.com