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falcon heavy test

There was some concern over the weekend that SpaceX would need to postpone its Falcon Heavy examination program because of the US authorities shutdown, but the visitor got back on track very quickly later on the upkeep impasse was (temporarily) solved early this week. SpaceX has successfully test fired the Falcon Heavy for the commencement fourth dimension ever, proving that if nothing else, the engines will exist able to ignite and transport the rocket upward. Everything after that is nevertheless unknown.

This milestone was what is known as a static fire test. The rocket was locked to the historic launch pad 39A at Kennedy Infinite Center for the test, and then it didn't actually go anywhere. The point of this exam is to ensure that all 27 Merlin rocket engines on the vehicle could ignite in unison. If even one of the engines fails to work, that could crusade a potentially catastrophic imbalance in the vehicle.

The test firing lasted a mere 12 seconds, and you can encounter the entire event in the video beneath. The engines created a feather of exhaust, outputting 5.1 meg pounds of thrust — that's nearly 1.vii one thousand thousand pounds from each of the rocket's iii Falcon nine cores. Ii of them are attached as side boosters, and the centre stage has a reinforced superstructure to hold the rocket together. The Falcon Heavy is the most powerful rocket since the Saturn 5, which NASA retired at the terminate of the Apollo programme. That rocket also flew from launch complex 39A, making SpaceX'southward upcoming launch quite fitting.

SpaceX confirms the static test burn went as expected, clearing the way for a real launch presently. How soon? SpaceX CEO Elon Musk hinted on Twitter that the timeline could be as short equally a week. When the Falcon Heavy launches, information technology will carry Musk's personal Tesla Roadster into space. There'southward no practical reason to launch the car, but SpaceX needed some mass to simulate a real payload, and this is exactly the sort of quirky thing Musk would practice.

If the launch goes too as the static test, the Falcon Heavy's 2d stage volition carry the auto into a Mars-adjacent orbit. The three first stage boosters will come back downwards for landing like a conventional Falcon 9 launch, only landing all three might be tricky because the higher speed involved. SpaceX sees the Falcon heavy as a vehicle that could send payloads to the moon, Mars, and fifty-fifty further into the outer solar system. Of course, Musk leaves open the possibility the first test flying will finish in an explosion.