SpaceX Falcon Heavy Completes First Commercial Mission With Triple Booster Landing
SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket successfully delivers a large communications satellite into orbit while achieving a historic triple landing of its first stage boosters.
SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket successfully completes its first commercial mission, launching a massive Arabsat communications satellite into orbit from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The 3.1 million-pound rocket ignites its 27 Merlin engines to produce more than 5.1 million pounds of thrust, sending the school bus-sized payload nearly one-quarter of the way to the moon.
This launch marks the first time the Falcon Heavy flies with upgraded Block 5 boosters, which provide increased thrust and improved reusability. The mission also achieves a major milestone for SpaceX as all three first stage boosters return safely to Earth, with two touching down at Cape Canaveral and one landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.
The successful flight comes just days after NASA’s administrator names the Falcon Heavy as a potential backup to the agency’s delayed Space Launch System for returning astronauts to the lunar surface. This commercial debut proves the reliability of the world’s most powerful operational launcher fourteen months after its initial test flight sent a Tesla sports car into space.