New SpaceX jumbo rocket set for debut
test launch in company milestone
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[February 06, 2018]
By Joey Roulette
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - A new
SpaceX jumbo rocket in line to become the world's most powerful launch
vehicle in operation was set for its highly anticipated debut test
flight on Tuesday from Florida, carrying a Tesla Roadster as a mock
payload.
Liftoff of the 23-story-tall Falcon Heavy was slated for as early as
1:30 p.m. EST (1830 GMT) at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral
in what would be a key turning point for Silicon Valley billionaire
entrepreneur Elon Musk's privately owned Space Exploration Technologies.
Getting the rocket off the ground would likely give California-based
SpaceX a new edge on the handful of commercial rocket companies vying
for lucrative contracts with NASA, satellite companies and the U.S.
military.
Propelled by 27 rocket engines, the Falcon Heavy packs more than 5
million pounds of thrust at launch, roughly three times the force of the
Falcon 9 booster that until now has been the workhorse of the SpaceX
fleet.

The new heavy-lift rocket is essentially constructed from three Falcon
9s harnessed together side-by-side, and Musk has said that one of the
most critical points of the flight will come as the two side boosters
separate from the central rocket in the first few minutes after
blastoff.
"It's going to be an exciting success or an exciting failure," Musk said
on a conference call on Monday.
Going along for the ride in a bit of playful cross-promotional space
theater will be a cherry red, electric-powered sports car from the
assembly line of Musk's other transportation enterprise, Tesla Inc
<TSLA.O>.
The sleek Tesla Roadster is supposed to be sent into a virtually
indefinite solar orbit, on a path taking it as far from Earth as Mars.
Adding to the whimsy, SpaceX has planted a space-suited mannequin in the
driver's seat of the convertible.
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A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket stands on historic launch pad 39A as it
is readied for its first demonstration flight at the Kennedy Space
Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S., February 5, 2018.
REUTERS/Joe Skipper

If the demonstration flight succeeds, Falcon Heavy will rank as the
world's most powerful existing rocket, with more lift capacity than
any U.S. space vehicle since the era of NASA's Saturn 5 rockets that
took astronauts to the moon some 45 years ago.
Fittingly perhaps, the SpaceX rocket will depart from the same
launch pad used for the Saturn 5 until its final mission in 1973.
Falcon Heavy is designed to place up to 70 tons into standard
low-Earth orbit at a cost of $90 million per launch. That is twice
the lift capacity of the biggest existing rocket in America's space
fleet - the Delta 4 Heavy of rival United Launch Alliance (ULA), a
partnership of Lockheed Martin Corp <LMT.N> and Boeing Co <BA.N> -
for about a fourth the cost.
Like the Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy is built to capitalize on
cost-cutting reusable rocket technology, with each of the three
main-stage boosters designed to fly back to Earth after launch.
The two side-boosters are supposed to touch down on landing pads at
Cape Canaveral, while the central booster should land on a drone
ship at sea.
(Additional reporting by Irene Klotz at Cape Canaveral, Florida;
writing and additional reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles,
editing by G Crosse)
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