Subscribe to CNN’s science newsletter at Wonder Theory. Explore the universe with news of exciting discoveries, scientific advances and more. CNN —

  SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy — a towering, tripartite vehicle that is the world’s most powerful operational rocket — returned to the skies on Tuesday for the first time since mid-2019.   

  The rocket was launched at 9:41 am.  ET from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, carrying satellites into space for the U.S. military in a secret mission called USSF-44.   

  The Falcon Heavy debuted in 2018 to much fanfare as SpaceX CEO Elon Musk chose to launch his personal Tesla Roadster as a test payload during the launch.  The car is still in space, following an elongated path around the sun that hovers up to the orbital path of Mars.   

  Since that first test mission, SpaceX has launched only two other Falcon Heavy missions, both in 2019. One sent a massive television and phone service satellite into orbit for Saudi Arabia-based Arabsat, and the other delivered a batch experimental satellites for the US Department of Defense.   

  But the rocket hadn’t launched since 2019, as the vast majority of SpaceX’s missions don’t require the Falcon Heavy’s boosted power.  SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, on the other hand, has launched nearly 50 missions so far this year alone.   

  With every Falcon Heavy launch, the rocket makes a dramatic appearance on Earth.   

  After Tuesday’s mission, the company tried to recover just two of the Falcon Heavy rocket’s first-stage boosters — the tall white sticks that are tied together to give the rocket its boost at launch.   

  As planned, the main booster was left to sink into the ocean, where it will remain, because it did not have enough fuel to guide its journey home, according to a news release from the US military’s Space Systems Command.   

  The two side boosters, however, made their signature synchronized landings on ground pads near the Florida coastline.   

  In the past, SpaceX has attempted to land all three of the rocket’s boosters back on landing surfaces on land and at sea so they can be refurbished and reused on future missions.  He does this to reduce shipping costs.  The company has not yet managed to regain all three, although it has come dramatically close.  The two side boosters made a precise, synchronized landing on ground pads after a mission in April 2019, and the missile’s center booster fell on a sea platform.  But then the rough waves at sea overturned her.   

  Although the Falcon Heavy is the world’s most powerful operational rocket, there are two massive rockets waiting in the wings to claim that title.   

  NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, which is currently set to launch its maiden flight later in November to send the uncrewed Artemis 1 mission around the moon, sits in Kennedy Space Center’s towering Vehicle Assembly Building , which is found only a few.  miles from the launch pad where the Falcon Heavy will fly.   

  While the Falcon Heavy puts out about five million pounds of thrust, the SLS is expected to put down up to 8.8 million pounds of thrust — 15 percent more thrust than the Saturn V rockets that powered the moon landings in the mid-20th century.   

  And just across the Gulf Coast, at SpaceX’s experimental facilities in South Texas, the company is in the final stages of preparations for the first orbital launch attempt of the Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket.  Although the test flight still awaits final approval from federal regulators, it could fly before the end of the year.   

  The Starship system is expected to exceed the power of both SLS and Falcon Heavy by a wide margin.  The upcoming Super Heavy booster, which is designed to launch the Starship spacecraft into space, is expected to put down only 17 million pounds of thrust.   

  Both the SLS rocket and SpaceX’s Starship are integral to NASA’s plans to return astronauts to the surface of the moon for the first time in half a century.   

  SpaceX also has its own, ambitious vision for Starship: transporting people and cargo to Mars in hopes of someday establishing a permanent human settlement there.   

  There is not much publicly available information about the USSF-44 mission.  In a press release, the US military’s Space Systems Command said only that the launch will put several satellites into orbit on behalf of the Space Systems Command’s Innovation and Prototyping Delta, which focuses on the rapid development of space technology to track objects in space. space.  as well as a number of other activities.   

  The Space Administration declined to provide additional information about the mission when contacted by email.  He referred questions to the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force, which also declined to comment.   

  The US military is one of the key drivers of the domestic rocket economy, awarding lucrative launch contracts coveted by private launch companies, including SpaceX and its main competitor in the region, United Launch Alliance, which is a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Swallow.