When Musk first announced the Falcon Heavy in April 2011, he predicted that its first flight could occur by 2013. The Falcon Heavy outside SpaceX's facility at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. "It'll be fine." A future for Falcon Heavy "I'm not worried about the car," Musk said. There are three cameras on the Roadster, Musk said, adding that they should capture "epic views" during the mission. There is an "extremely tiny" chance the car could hit the Red Planet, he added. "It will essentially be an Earth-Mars cycler," Musk said, adding that the orbit should bring the Roadster near Mars. That maneuver will send the Roadster into orbit around the sun and, in turn, eventually carry the car and Starman about 248 million miles (400 million kilometers) from Earth. ![]() If all goes well, the second stage will coast for 6 hours through Earth's Van Allen belts, regions of extremely high radiation, and then restart its engine to send the Roadster and Starman toward Mars. Then, on Monday, he revealed another surprise: a spacesuit-clad mannequin called "Starman"(a reference to David Bowie's song "Starman") in the driver's seat, with its right hand on the wheel and left arm resting on the door.Ībout 28 minutes into today's test flight, the second stage carrying the Roadster shut down its engine, ending the main phase of the Falcon Heavy test flight. Musk announced in December that the "midnight cherry red" convertible, which he owns, would be the first Falcon Heavy payload. (The rocket family is named after another famously reusable spaceship, the fictional Millennium Falcon from "Star Wars," Musk has said.)īut perhaps the biggest draw of today's launch was the Falcon Heavy's unique payload: a Tesla Roadster riding atop the rocket's second stage.Ī dummy passenger in a Tesla Roadster rode aboard the maiden flight of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy on Feb. SpaceX has now successfully landed Falcon-family rockets 24 times - three on this mission alone. The crash damaged the nearby drone ship, he added. Musk said the core stage hit the Atlantic Ocean at about 300 mph after two of three engines did not fire during the descent. The third was scheduled to land on SpaceX's drone-ship landing pad "Of Course I Still Love You," stationed in the Atlantic Ocean. ![]() Two boosters touched down at SpaceX landing sites at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station near KSC. In a sort of cosmic dance, the three first-stage core boosters returned to Earth much like SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets have in the past. The Falcon Heavy's two side boosters returned to Cape Canaveral to stick a historic double landing after SpaceX's new megarocket successfully launched on its first test flight on Feb.
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