American company SpaceX This Tuesday (1), a Falcon Heavy rocket launched from Florida, the world’s most powerful active rocket, in its first launch since 2019.
The Falcon Heavy took off at approximately 9:40 a.m. local time (10:40 a.m. EDT) from Launch Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in the southeastern United States. United State, during a mission called USSF-44. The spacecraft was carrying a US Space Force cargo, including a satellite called TETRA 1.
A few minutes after takeoff, the two rocket thrusters returned to Earth. The middle section of the ship will not be recovered.
The Falcon Heavy Super rocket flew for the first time in a test in 2018, when it moved the vehicle Tesla Billionair Which color muskOwner of both companies. The second flight took place in June 2019, and today is the third operational and commercial flight for Falcon Heavy.
SpaceX currently has two operational rockets.
The first is Falcon 9, which is used to transport astronauts from NASA To the International Space Station (ISS), or the launch of the Internet-providing SpaceX satellites (Starlink) from space.
The second is the Falcon Heavy, which is used to launch much heavier payloads, or into distant orbits. The missile is capable of delivering up to 64 tons into Earth orbit.
It was chosen by NASA to put certain components of its future space station in lunar orbit.
At its base in Texas, SpaceX is developing another separate rocket, the Starship, which consists of a spacecraft mounted on a first chassis, called the Super Heavy. However, this missile never flew in its full configuration. The spacecraft only made suborbital test flights, many of which ended in spectacular explosions.
The spacecraft has been selected by the US Space Agency to take its astronauts to the Moon during the Artemis 3 mission, scheduled for 2025.
The NASA will send its astronauts first into orbit around the moonThanks to a heavy launcher called SLS. This equipment has been in development for more than a decade.
The SLS’s first liftoff, which will overtake the Falcon Heavy and become the world’s most powerful rocket, has been called off twice at the last minute this summer. This unmanned test flight is scheduled to be retried on the 14th of this month.
