The World’s Most Powerful Rocket took off from Kennedy Space Center. SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy was successfully launched on Tuesday, February 6, 2018, to much fanfare, especially from cheering colleagues at the company’s headquarters in Hawthorne, California.
With the ability to lift nearly 64 metric tons into orbit and a mass greater than a fully loaded 737 jetliner, Falcon Heavy is most powerful operational rocket in the world by a huge margin.
This was a successful maiden flight which started at 3:45 EST. Both side boosters landed safely on landing zones 1 and 2 in Cape Canaveral. Only one of the three engines on the center booster ignited during the landing, which caused it to fall into the Atlantic next to the droneship at over 300 mph.
Falcon Heavy’s second stage successfully placed a Tesla Roadster piloted by a test dummy into orbit.
Falcon Heavy’s first stage generates more than 5 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, equal to approximately eighteen 747 aircraft. Only the Saturn V moon rocket, last flown in 1973, delivered more payload to orbit.
