Spacex Falcon Heavy Launch Date: Rocket Ready For Maiden Voyage
After much anticipation, the SpaceX Falcon Heavy Rocket is now positioned on its launch pad ready for its maiden flight. The rocket is destined for Earth's neighbor Mars where it will send a very special payload into orbit around the red planet.
It's a scene played once before, on July 16, 1969 where a mighty rocket was in position for a launch to the final frontier. It was on that day that one of mankind's greatest achievements began to be etched into history.
Today, at the very same launch pad where the Saturn V rocket carrying Apollo 11 ascended to the heavens, technicians working for Elon Musk's upstart rocket company are preparing for the maiden flight of what is perhaps the world's most powerful rocket since Saturn V.
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Aboard the rocket's payload compartment is Musk's own midnight cherry Tesla Roadster, a red car for the red planet as he puts it. After it reaches its destination, the vehicle would travel around the sun in endless ellipses that extended as far out as Mars' orbit.
However, the Falcon Heavy Rocket's story doesn't end there as the most important aspect of the mission is what it leaves behind: the booster rockets. Space advocates believe that the rocket could offer a quicker, cheaper path for NASA to send astronauts back to the moon thanks to its reusable components.
This is what SpaceX is all about, to offer a low-cost and reliable way to transport people and payloads to space. If successful, it would continue the company's very impressive run of achieving launch milestones that have been viewed as very difficult. This is according to Carissa Christensen, chief executive of Bryce Space and Technology, a consulting firm that follows the space industry.
People are already gathering at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to see the rocket's first static firing. Its success could bring the Falcon Heavy rocket one step closer to lift-off.
