Today SpaceX made history by launching the Falcon Heavy rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The first flight for Falcon Heavy was a test flight in which Elon Musk decided to use a Tesla Roadster as payload, rather than the standard cement block that simulates commercial cargo like satellites. The launch was spectacular and the massive rocket with its 27 Merlin engines that together generate more than 5 million pounds of thrust at liftoff was largely successful.
2 of the side boosters returned back to earth and landed safely, a key part of the SpaceX mission is to make components reusable, so that aspect was an overwhelming success. The fact they were syncronised was just an added bonus. The one aspect of the launch that didn’t go according to plan was the landing of the main booster on the drone ship at sea. Unfortunately, this crashed at speed near the drone ship, as such the cameras didn’t capture it.
Prior to today’s launch, Space X released an animation of the planned launch sequence and now we have footage of the actual event, I’ve done an A-B comparison that is actually amazingly accurate for a majority of the video.
You can watch the real launch vs simulation below and enjoy the view of Starman in orbit, wearing the SpaceX developed space suit.
