![]() “And then we thought well, maybe we can make BFR development go faster than we thought, if that's true then there won't be much point in qualifying Falcon Heavy for launching Dragons. That was our plan until last year,” Musk explained yesterday. Actually further than they went during Apollo. “You can toss a Dragon way past the moon. But for now, SpaceX is planning for all crewed deep space missions, moon included, to be launched on BFR. Musk says if the company can’t get its BFR off the ground soon, they could potentially return to the idea of launching Falcon Heavy toward the moon with crew, which Musk claims it is “absolutely” capable of. As Musk announced last summer, SpaceX is moving forward with building a massive multi-purpose spacecraft it calls BFR that will essentially make its current fleet redundant, including the Falcon Heavy. While the Falcon Heavy has missions on the books, SpaceX’s crewed lunar mission is no longer one of them. Musk explained before the Falcon Heavy demo launch that an in-flight failure, rather than an explosion at 39A, wouldn’t affect SpaceX’s day-to-day and SpaceX “could launch another in three to four months.” “It's going to take us at least 9 to 12 months to get the pad back in action,” Musk responded when asked what a fallout from a pad explosion would look like. SpaceX leased the pad from NASA and spent nearly $20 million renovating it to launch Falcon Heavy and missions for the upcoming Commercial Crew Program in which NASA crew will be taxied to the space station. ![]() ![]() This was part of the reason that getting Falcon Heavy safely off the pad was so critical, and even considered a win at that point into Tuesday’s launch. ![]() The billionaire claimed that an unexpected explosion of the Falcon Heavy at liftoff would be the equivalent of 4 million pounds of TNT-which would nearly demolish the pad that also hosted missions of NASA’s celebrated Space Shuttle program. If it just clears the pad and doesn't blow it to smithereens.” We don't want to set expectations of perfection by any means. But hopefully, if something goes wrong, it goes wrong far into the mission so we at least learn as much as possible along the way,” said Musk at Kennedy Space Center on the eve of the flight. “It would be a really huge downer if it blows up. In the lead up to the launch, Musk said not destroying what he considers the Times Square of pads would be a win for SpaceX. The few moments of silence came quickly to an end as the thunderous firing of the rocket’s 27 engines startled the crowds that packed the coastline for miles and miles.Īs the Falcon Heavy lifted slowly off historic Pad 39A, now leased by SpaceX from NASA, the anxiety of the site being left in ruins from a launch failure began to subside. In the shadow of the largest single-story building in the world, NASA’s towering Vehicle Assembly Building, and in front of the agency’s iconic ticking countdown clock, onlookers gasped as cloud plumes quietly billowed out from beneath the Falcon Heavy. Upon liftoff, at precisely 3:45 pm Eastern, the Falcon Heavy rocket took its place as the most powerful launch vehicle in the world.Ībout 3.5 miles away from Pad 39A, the site that hosted the first crewed mission to the moon in 1969, hundreds of reporters dispatched from around the world gathered at NASA’s press site to witness the maiden flight. Tens of thousands of spectators made the pilgrimage from across the country to experience the immense heat and thunderous roar of the rocket’s 5 million pounds of thrust. Florida’s space coast roared to life on Tuesday as SpaceX fired off its long-in-development Falcon Heavy rocket from Kennedy Space Center.
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