SpaceX Makes History After Successful Falcon Heavy Test Flight
SpaceX hits another milestone after a successful initial launch test for the Falcon Heavy rocket. Known as "The World's Most Powerful Rocket," the Falcon Heavy managed to exceed Mars orbit and even kept going.
The launch went down on Tuesday at the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The rocket designed to transport cargo and humans to Mars managed to reach its destination and even gave people a live feed. The rocket's payload carried a red Tesla Roadster with a mannequin taking the wheel. The dummy known as Starman roamed around and gave people a clear visual footage of space. SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk even poked fun on Starman and his trip to space. "View from SpaceX launch control. Apparently, there is a car in orbit around Earth," he tweeted.
The Falcon Heavy faced numerous delays in launching back in January. Before and after the rocket's launch, Falcon Heavy stirred quite the excitement among people on social media. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos wished SpaceX a goodluck before the launch. "Best of luck @SpaceX with the Falcon Heavy launch tomorrow – hoping for a beautiful, nominal flight," he tweeted.
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Even the President of the United States Donald Trump took it to Twitter to congratulate Musk and SpaceX for another achievement. "Congratulations @ElonMusk and @SpaceX on the successful #FalconHeavy launch. This achievement, along with @NASA's commercial and international partners, continues to show American ingenuity at its best," the POTUS posted.
After its successful launch, it was reported that the center core of the rocket was not able to land at its designated drone ship. A source of The Verge said the center core landed on water after only one of the three engines relight. The two engines were then taken out after the center core crashed.
The center core's failure to land, however, was a small issue and did not affect the general launch of the Falcon Heavy.
