A SpaceX Falcon Heavy launches on November 1, 2022 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, sending satellites into orbit for the military. Credit: SpaceX/Space Force
For the first time in more than three years, SpaceX launched its gigantic Falcon Heavy rocket, sending US military satellites into orbit. The rocket lifted off amid heavy fog at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday, November 1. A few minutes later, two propulsion segments returned to Earth, docking the landings side by side at Cape Canaveral.
This was SpaceX’s 50th launch in 2022 (44 weeks later). That puts SpaceX on its current pace of one launch every 6.10 days, putting the commercial company on track for 59 launches this year. It was also the 70th orbital launch attempt of the year for the American space industry and the 150th in the world.
Falcon Heavy’s two side thrusters return to Earth during SpaceX’s 50th mission in 2022. Credit: SpaceX/US Space Force
Liftoff occurred at 9:41 a.m. EDT (6:41 a.m. PDT) from launch pad 39A for mission classified USSF-44 for the US Space Force. The Falcon Heavy’s most recent previous launch was in June 2019, a Space Test Program-2 (STP-2) mission that carried experimental satellites on a demonstration flight for the Pentagon.
Falcon Heavy’s side thrusters have landed, marking the 150th and 151st recovery of Orbital-class rockets https://t.co/vK4ZdfDQtX
The Falcon Heavy first flew in 2018, sending SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s personal Tesla Roadster as a test payload. The car (and its dummy passenger, Starman) is still traveling through space, heading in an oblong-shaped path around the Sun that oscillates to the orbital path of Mars.
While the USSF-44 mission is classified, the U.S. Army Space Systems Command said in a news release that the launch will put several satellites into orbit on behalf of the command’s Innovation and Prototyping Delta of space systems, which focuses on the rapid development of space technology as it relates to the tracking of objects in space, as well as a number of other activities.
Ahead of the launch, Colonel Douglas Pentecost, Space Systems Command’s deputy program executive officer for safe access to space, said: “We’re getting close to launch day and we’re totally excited! This is going to be our first National Security Space Launch (NSSL) Falcon Heavy and the first Falcon Heavy since STP-2 over three years ago Our Launch and Mission Assurance team and SpaceX, along with the fantastic Space Launch crew Delta 45, they’ve done an absolutely outstanding job preparing this rocket. We put significant national capabilities in space to meet the threat, and working together we ensure 100 percent mission success.”
Falcon Heavy has not been used recently as most SpaceX missions do not require the heavy lifting of the Falcon Heavy’s ability to lift nearly 64 metric tons (141,000 pounds) into orbit. SpaceX says the Falcon Heavy is the world’s most powerful operational rocket by a factor of two, as it can lift more than twice the payload of the next closest operational vehicle, the Delta IV Heavy. Falcon Heavy is composed of three cores of nine Falcon 9 engines whose 27 Merlin engines generate more than 5 million pounds of thrust at takeoff, equivalent to approximately eighteen 747 aircraft.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket has launched 49 missions so far this year.
Originally published on Universe Today.