Wednesday, May 10, 2017

SpaceX Test Fires Falcon Heavy

Hawthorne-based SpaceX has released a video of its first, static fire test of a Falcon Heavy rocket, which it conducted last week in McGregor, Texas. The firing is one of the steps along the way to launching its first Falcon Heavy rocket, a heavy lifting rocket which SpaceX has said will lift twice the payload the largest rocket now available--Delta IV Heavy--into orbit. The Falcon Heavy will be the largest, rocket to be created since the Saturn V moon rocket, which was last launched in 1973. SpaceX has the first flight of a Falcon Heavy rocket sometime in the third quarter of this year, with a "demo flight" of the rocket expected to launch from LC-39A at Florida's Kennedy Space Center. The Falcon Heavy consists of three Falcon 9 rocket cores and 27 Merlin 1D engines.

First static fire test of a Falcon Heavy center core completed at our McGregor, TX rocket development facility last week. pic.twitter.com/tHUHc1QiKG

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) May 9, 2017

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