Space X Falcon Heavy

The Falcon Heavy is a partially reusable heavy-lift launch vehicle designed and manufactured by SpaceX. It is derived from the Falcon 9 vehicle and consists of a strengthened Falcon 9 first stage as the centre core with two additional Falcon 9-like first stages as strap-on boosters. The Falcon Heavy has the highest payload capacity of any currently operational launch vehicle, and the third-highest capacity of any rocket ever to reach orbit, trailing the Saturn V and Energia.

SpaceX conducted the Falcon Heavy’s maiden launch on February 6, 2018, at 3:45 p.m. EST (20:45 UTC). The rocket carried a Tesla Roadster belonging to SpaceX founder Elon Musk, carrying a dummy dubbed “Starman”, as a dummy payload. The second Falcon Heavy launch occurred on April 11, 2019 and all three booster rockets successfully returned to Earth. The third Falcon Heavy launch successfully occurred on June 25, 2019. Since then, the Falcon Heavy has been certified for the National Security Space Launch program.

The Falcon Heavy was designed to be able to carry humans into space beyond low Earth orbit, although from February 2018, SpaceX confirmed that they will not transport people on the Falcon Heavy, nor pursue the human-rating certification process to transport NASA astronauts. The Falcon Heavy and Falcon 9 will be replaced by the Starship launch system.