SpaceX flew its Falcon Heavy for the first time in three years

France Press agency , Posted on Tuesday, November 1, 2022 at 4:49 pm

US company SpaceX launched the Falcon Heavy launch vehicle from Florida on Tuesday, the most powerful operational rocket in the world today, in its first launch since 2019.

It took off around 9:40 a.m. local time from Launch Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center, during a mission dubbed USSF-44, carrying cargo on behalf of the US Space Force, including a satellite called TETRA 1.

A few minutes after takeoff, the two boosters of the rocket returned to the ground. The central floor will not be restored.

A Falcon Heavy first flew into a test in 2018, carrying the Tesla of SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.

Tuesday was Falcon Heavy’s third operational and commercial flight, most recently in June 2019.

SpaceX currently has two operational rockets.

The first is Falcon 9, which is used notably to transport NASA astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS), or to launch the satellites of the Internet-providing SpaceX constellation from space, Starlink.

The second is the Falcon Heavy, which is used to launch much heavier payloads or into distant orbits. The missile is capable of carrying up to 64 tons in Earth orbit.

NASA has selected the Falcon Heavy rocket to launch certain components of its future space station into orbit around the Moon.

At its base in Texas, SpaceX is separately developing another rocket, the Starship, consisting of a spacecraft installed in a first stage, called the Super Heavy. But this missile did not fly in its full configuration. The ship only made suborbital test flights, many of which ended in impressive explosions.

The Starship was chosen by NASA to land astronauts on the Moon during the Artemis 3 mission, in the year 2025 at the earliest.

NASA will first take its astronauts into lunar orbit, thanks to its own heavy launcher, called the SLS, which has been in development for more than a decade.

The SLS’s first takeoff, which is set to overtake the Falcon Heavy and become the world’s most powerful rocket, has been called off twice at the last minute this summer. A new attempt at this unmanned test flight is scheduled for November 14.