SpaceX launches Falcon Heavy rocket
SpaceX’s big new rocket, the Falcon Heavy, blasted off Tuesday on its first test flight, carrying Elon Musk’s red Tesla Roadster on a trip past Mars. The rocket left from the launch pad used by NASA nearly 50 years ago to send men to the moon. With liftoff, the Heavy became the most powerful rocket in use today, doubling the liftoff punch of its closest competitor. The three boosters and 27 engines roared to life at Kennedy Space Center as thousands watched from surrounding beaches, bridges and roads, jamming the highways.
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — From the same pad where NASA launched rockets that carried astronauts to the moon, a big, new U.S. rocket arced into space Tuesday. But this time, NASA was not involved. The rocket, the Falcon Heavy, was built by SpaceX, the company founded and run by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk.
The launch of this turbocharged version of the workhorse Falcon 9 rocket, which has been carrying cargo to space for years, marks an important milestone in spaceflight, the first time a rocket this powerful has been sent into space by a private company rather than a government space agency.
The rocket carried a playful payload: Musk’s red Roadster, an electric sports car built by his other company, Tesla. Strapped inside the car is a mannequin wearing one of SpaceX’s spacesuits. They are expected to orbit the sun for hundreds of millions of years.
The success gives SpaceX momentum to begin developing even larger rockets, which could help fulfill Musk’s dream of sending people to Mars. To do that, he has described a new-generation rocket called BFR (the B stands for big; the R for rocket) that might be ready to launch in the mid-2020s. The Falcon Heavy’s maiden flight makes pursuit of the goal more plausible.
Musk’s visions include humans living both on Earth and Mars. He’s part of a new generation of entrepreneurial space pioneers that includes Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, who has said having millions of people living in space is one of the goals driving his rocket company, Blue Origin. Planetary Ventures, a U.S. company with a large investment from Luxembourg, hopes to mine asteroids for profit. Moon Express, based in Florida, sees a business in providing regular transportation to and from the moon.
For now, the Heavy will enable SpaceX to compete for contracts to launch larger spy satellites, and some experts in spaceflight are encouraging NASA to use private rockets like the Heavy instead of the gigantic and more expensive rocket, the Space Launch System, that is currently being developed in part to take astronauts back to the moon.
Although delayed by highaltitude winds, the countdown proceeded smoothly, without any of the glitches that have bedeviled the maiden launch of new rockets.
The Heavy roared to life, a plume of smoke and steam shooting sideways from the launchpad. It rose from the pad, with an impossibly bright glare of 27 engines beneath it.
Once in orbit, the rocket sent back video of the spacesuit-wearing mannequin in the car with a hand on the steering wheel. On the dashboard were the words, “Don’t Panic,” a nod to Douglas Adams’ book “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.”