LONDON: It will be a few more months before SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket launches from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, FL. But eager space fans can get a feel for the workings of the launch via a new animation released.
The animation shows an approximation of the planned launch before switching to SpaceX’s novel recoverable boosters as they make their way back to the Earth.
The Falcon Heavy will become the most powerful rocket in the world upon its launch later this year, according to SpaceX. The rockets 27 Merlin 1D engines will produce nearly 4 million pounds of thrust upon liftoff. This massive amount of initial force fa exceeds the amount generated by the Delta IV Heavy rockets used by the United Launch Alliance, NASA partners who recently handled the Orion capsule test launch.
The Falcon Heavy is the most powerful rocket developed since the Saturn V, which shuttled Apollo astronauts to the Moon. This amount of thrust hasn’t been seen on Earth in quite a while, but its not the only familiar thing making a comeback with the launch of the Falcon Heavy.
Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center has sat unused since the Space Shuttle Program was discontinued in 2011. SpaceX is currently modifying the iconic launchpad to accommodate its latest rocket.
Much like SpaceX’s last launch, the Falcon Heavy launch will feature an attempt to recover the first-stage boosters once they separate from the Falcon. The previous attempt failed when the booster lost control at the last moment and crashed into the drone landing platform. Elon Musk and Co. obviously hope to have the kinks worked out by the time of the Falcon’s launch.
The end goal of the recoverable rockets is to make space travel more affordable by re-using equipment and materials across multiple flights.
