CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Watch the launch and boosters landing here:
- It is essentially three rockets bolted together to make the heavy vehicle.
- It is a test flight.
- The middle booster will carry Elon Musk's own Red Tesla Roadster.
- The Roadster is planned be near Mars' orbit in a precession Earth Mars elliptical orbit around the sun.
- The mission will try to prove that it is possible to put payloads into an orbit intersecting Mars. This would help in the mission planned to put humans in Mars.
- Musk presented this project in 2011 and he planned to roll out the heavy rocket in Southern California in late 2012. He hoped for a launch at some point in 2013 - it was obviously delayed.
- The rockets were put in position in pad 39A and tested in December 2017.
- Falcon Heavy rockets cost a fraction of the price of the future Space Launch System rockets, which are planned to have more lift and throw a space craft further into space, to Jupiter and beyond. They will probably not be ready until the mid-2020s.
- Each rocket has nine engines, making it 27 engines in total that need to ignite in tandem.
- The two side rockets will jettison from the center rocket two and a half minutes after liftoff.
- The center booster will continue for a bit longer before engines are shut off.
- All three rockets are planned to land back on Earth; two back at the Cape and the heavier rocket at the Atlantic (barge) platform called "Of course, I still love you."
- There is a good chance that this launch may fail (but we certainly hope not!).
- Falcon Heavy weighs more than 3.1 million pounds (loaded with kerosene and liquid oxygen) and it's about 229 feet tall.
- If successful, there will be more heavy launches during the first half of 2018 from Cape Canaveral, too.
- Central Florida residents, especially those near the coast - but as far away as metro Orlando -- may hear a sonic boom.