{"id":18690,"date":"2017-12-20T17:52:05","date_gmt":"2017-12-20T09:52:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/elon-musk-lifts-the-veil-on-spacexs-falcon-heavy-rocket-being-readied-for-its-debut\/"},"modified":"2017-12-20T17:52:05","modified_gmt":"2017-12-20T09:52:05","slug":"elon-musk-lifts-the-veil-on-spacexs-falcon-heavy-rocket-being-readied-for-its-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/elon-musk-lifts-the-veil-on-spacexs-falcon-heavy-rocket-being-readied-for-its-debut\/","title":{"rendered":"Elon Musk lifts the veil on SpaceX\u2019s Falcon Heavy rocket being readied for its debut"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Falcon
SpaceX\u2019s Falcon Heavy rocket makes use of 27 Merlin engines arranged on three cores. (SpaceX via Elon Musk \/ Twitter)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

SpaceX\u2019s Falcon Heavy rocket just got more real, now that billionaire founder Elon Musk has tweeted out pictures of the triple-barreled launch vehicle.<\/p>\n

The late-night tweet was accompanied by three views of the rocket cores being processed at SpaceX\u2019s Florida facility in preparation for the rocket\u2019s first test liftoff. That\u2019s scheduled to take place next month from Launch Complex 39A at NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center.<\/p>\n

There was nary a sign of what\u2019ll go on top of the rocket \u2014 a payload shroud that\u2019s due to contain Musk\u2019s cherry-red Tesla Roadster sports car, set up to play David Bowie\u2019s \u201cSpace Oddity\u201d on the sound system.<\/p>\n

But Twitter fans were enchanted nevertheless by the sight of the triple-cored rocket, bristling with 27 Merlin engines at its bottom. \u201cOMG\u201d was a common reaction.<\/p>\n

\"Falcon
An overhead view shows the Falcon Heavy\u2019s three cores, each with the power equivalent to a Falcon 9 booster. The second stage on the center core is equipped with a single Merlin engine. (SpaceX via Elon Musk \/ Twitter)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Falcon
The Falcon Heavy is being processed at SpaceX\u2019s Florida facility. (SpaceX via Elon Musk \/ Twitter)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When completed, the 230-foot-tall, two-stage rocket should be capable of launching up to 140,660 pounds of payload into low Earth orbit, or 37,000 pounds to Mars. SpaceX notes that only the Saturn V rocket, last launched in 1973, delivered more payload to orbit.<\/p>\n

The Falcon Heavy launch system is also designed to fly back each of the rocket cores to a landing for recovery and reuse. For this launch, SpaceX will be using a recycled (\u201cflight-proven\u201d) and modified Falcon 9 booster on each side, and a reinforced virgin core in the center.<\/p>\n

The rocket\u2019s maiden launch should be quite a spectacle, whether it\u2019s a success or failure. When Musk discussed the Falcon Heavy back in July, he wasn\u2019t sure which it would be.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat requires the simultaneous ignition of 27 orbit-class engines. There\u2019s a lot that could go wrong there,\u201d Musk said. \u201cI encourage people to come down to the Cape and see the first Falcon Heavy mission. It\u2019s guaranteed to be exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SpaceX\u2019s Falcon Heavy rocket makes use of 27 Merlin engines arranged on three cores. (SpaceX via Elon Musk \/ Twitter) SpaceX\u2019s Falcon Heavy rocket just got more real, now that billionaire founder Elon Musk has tweeted out pictures of the triple-barreled launch vehicle. The late-night tweet was accompanied by three views of the rocket cores […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[291,678,316],"class_list":["post-18690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-commercial-space","tag-falcon-heavy","tag-spacex"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18690"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18690\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}