Go! Falcon Heavy sent Tesla to Mars

Finally, after a lot of starts, the long-awaited event happened. SpaceX successfully conducted the first launch of the Falcon Heavy super-heavy launch vehicle.

The launch took place at 23:45 Moscow time from the launch complex 39A of the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The launch window opened at 21:30 Moscow time, and the company postponed the launch several times due to strong wind. Overclocking blocks successfully returned to Earth. The side blocks synchronously landed on Cape Canaveral, and the central one on the barge (there were no official data on the success of the landing, while the broadcast was interrupted, the connection was interrupted).


hard to believe, but this is not 3D animation

You can watch the replay of the broadcast on the official SpaceX channel.



Falcon Heavy is the most powerful of the existing missiles, and the most powerful of the launched over the past 30 years. Its maximum carrying capacity is almost 64 tons, a rocket will be able to deliver about 17 tons of cargo to Mars.



When you first started there was a big risk of an accident, so SpaceX decided to launch a personal Tesla Roadster Mask. The probability to bring it directly into the circum-Martian orbit Musk called extremely small. Above the machine, SpaceX specialists also did their best, installed many cameras, did not even forget to put a dummy in a SpaceX spacesuit.



In 2018, two more launches of Falcon Heavy are expected. We are talking about the missions of Arabsat 6A (in the interests of Saudi Arabia) and the Space Test Program 2 (for the US Air Force).

Structurally, the first stage of the Falcon Heavy consists of a central unit and a pair of side accelerators, representing the upgraded first stages of a heavy Falcon 9 rocket. The cost of launching an extra heavy rocket is estimated at $ 90-120 million.

For comparison, the launch of ULA's Delta IV costs $ 164-400 million. This rocket is still the most lifting in the world, its maximum load is about 29 tons.

“Falcon Heavy is capable of raising twice the price per quarter (compared to the Delta IV),” said Luigi Peluso, consultant to AlixPartners, aerospace company, in a conversation with Bloomberg. “If it works, it means opportunities for the lunar program, which is on the long-term agenda of Washington and NASA.”

For the lunar program of the United States, which worked from 1961 to 1972, they used the Saturn V rocket. It could bring up to 140 tons of cargo into low near-earth orbit, the Saturn V launches were stopped in 1973, also because of the high cost.

Projects of superheavy launch vehicles are implemented only in the United States. Four start of the Soviet carrier N-1 were unsuccessful. Rocket tested from 1969 to 1972, it was supposed to be used for the Soviet lunar missions. The second in the USSR super-heavy carrier, “Energy”, was launched twice - in 1987 and 1988, both times successfully. This rocket was created, among other things, for the Soviet orbital ship Buran. The Energy-Buran program was closed in 1993.

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