What's the big deal about next week's SpaceX "Falcon Heavy" launch?
Another huge event is coming soon! SpaceX's "Falcon Heavy" launch is tentatively scheduled for Tuesday February 6th, 2018 (or shortly thereafter)- what's the significance of this historic event?
One of the major goals of SpaceX? A revolution in spaceflight: To make rockets completely reusable by making them land, thereby significantly reducing the costs. You can see the long history starting with Grasshopper (and of course all the other rocket technology that SpaceX developed to help reach this by watching the videos below):
It was a task deemed impossible by most, but on April 8, 2016 the impossible became possible when a Falcon 9 rocket launched and successfully landed on a moving ocean barge.
History was made with rocket reusability thereby significantly reducing costs. Since then, SpaceX has recovered 17 first-stage boosters (4 of them twice!) and already successfully reused 5 of them!
Now the incredible journey that came before has lead to this moment where the three sets of 9 Merlin engines that power each Falcon 9 will be used together. The Falcon Heavy has a total of 27 Merlin engines with huge lift powers that have not been seen since Saturn V and Soviet Energia rockets.
For next week's test, one item on board will be Elon Musk's own Tesla Roadster (blasting Bowie's "Space Oddity" on its radio!) —The Falcon Heavy can place 26.7 metric tons in Geostationary Transfer Orbit, suitable for most industry needs.
From the same launchpad used in 1969's moon landing, Buzz Aldrin will be in the audience watching, along with Harrison Ford. (Falcon Heavy's name was inspired by the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars).
Falcon Heavy will place 12 satellites into orbit, plus 6 other satellites, and another 5 smaller payloads. Lastly, a 'DSX' spacecraft at a lower orbit.
Despite the heavy loads, Falcon Heavy is still significantly cheaper than its competitors. SpaceX is planning on landing and recovering all three of the booster rockets from the Falcon Heavy!
Photo Credit: SpaceX
What's even more incredible is that Elon Musk stated that this specific launch will have the Tesla Roadster in orbit near Mars using “a precessing Earth-Mars elliptical orbit around the sun.”-Musk
(Image by: Hubbard, Arizona University)
Falcon Heavy will eventually carry Dragon Spacecraft and Astronauts to the Moon, and beyond. However, there is still a chance the rocket fails and explodes on launch, or something else goes wrong—but that's why it's called a test. Let's cross our fingers and hope that this doesn't happen!
Photo Credit: SpaceX
So get ready everyone, if the test succeeds, and we hope it will - it's going to be another historic week for SpaceX, and humanity along for the ride! ###
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