For the first time in more than three years, SpaceX launched its giant Falcon Heavy rocket, sending US military satellites into orbit. The rocket lifted off amid heavy fog at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Tuesday, November 1. Minutes later, two boosters returned to Earth, sticking the side landings at Cape Canaveral. This was SpaceX’s 50th launch in 2022 (44 weeks from now). That puts SpaceX at its current rate of launching every 6.10 days, putting the commercial company on track for 59 launches this year. It was also the 70th orbital launch attempt of the year for the US space industry and the 150th for the world. Falcon Heavy’s two side boosters return to Earth on SpaceX’s 50th mission in 2022. Credit: SpaceX/US Space Force Takeoff was at 9:41 am. EDT (6:41 a.m. PDT) from launch site 39A for the USSF-44 classified mission for the US Space Force. The most recent previous launch for the Falcon Heavy was in June 2019, a Space Test Program-2 (STP-2) mission that carried experimental satellites on a demonstration flight for the Pentagon. Falcon Heavy side boosters have landed – marking the 150th and 151st recoveries of Orbital-class rockets https://t.co/vK4ZdfDQtX Falcon Heavy first flew in 2018, sending SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s personal Tesla Roadster as a test payload. The car (and its mannequin passenger, Starman) is still traveling through space, heading in an elongated orbit around the Sun that hovers up to the orbital path of Mars. While the USSF-44 mission is classified, the US military’s Space Systems Command said in a press release that the launch will put multiple satellites into orbit on behalf of Space Systems Command’s Innovation and Prototyping Delta, which focuses on the rapid development of space technology. . it is related to tracking objects in space as well as a number of other activities. Ahead of the launch, Colonel Douglas Pentecost, the Space Systems Administration’s Deputy Program Executive for Safe Access to Space, said: “We’re getting closer to launch day and we’re absolutely pumped! This will be our first National Security Space Launch (NSSL) Falcon Heavy and the first Falcon Heavy since STP–2 three years ago. Our launch and mission assurance team and SpaceX, along with the fantastic crew at Space Launch Delta 45, have done an absolutely outstanding job preparing this rocket. We have significant national capabilities in space to meet the threat and working together we ensure one hundred percent mission success.” The Falcon Heavy has not been used recently, as the majority of SpaceX missions do not require the heavy lifting of the Falcon Heavy’s ability to lift nearly 64 metric tons (141,000 pounds) into orbit. SpaceX says the Falcon Heavy is the world’s most powerful commercial rocket by a factor of two, as it can lift more than twice the payload of the next closest commercial vehicle, the Delta IV Heavy. Falcon Heavy consists of three Falcon 9 cores with nine engines whose 27 Merlin engines together produce more than 5 million pounds of thrust at takeoff, equal to about eighteen 747 aircraft. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket has launched 49 missions so far this year. Originally published on Universe Today.
