Few days ago Elon Musk confirmed the news about the biggest rocket ever built by his firm SpaceX and about its launching in the next four months.
The new rocket named Falcon Heavy which is 230-foot-tall, combines the power of three smaller Falcon 9 rockets and uses 27 rocket engines in order to create over 5 million pounds for thrusting a liftoff. Being the most powerful rocket ever, Falcon Heavy can launch 54 metric tons of cargo and crew into space.
The rocket is capable of sending two passengers, small spaceship and additional gear to the moon. A privately funded moon journey is also what Musk wishes to carry out in the next four months. The rocket will transport the first space tourists to the Moon, a step which might take humanity farther in space. The journey will probably take about six to seven days, per Futurism.
While answering a user’s question regarding the launch of the rocket on Thursday, Musk confirmed the news of launching Falcon Heavy.
All Falcon Heavy cores should be at the Cape in two to three months, so launch should happen a month after that
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 8, 2017
Though Falcon Heavy was thought to launch in March initially, an explosion on a launchpad in September, along with investigation lasting for months and provisional stand-down on launches, made the rocket’s initial launch to be conducted by the third quarter of 2017, reported Business Insider.
In order to launch, SpaceX will strap two already launched Falcon 9 boosters to each side of the new rocket. The two rockets would peel off after the launch and land themselves at Cape Canaveral in Florida in order to be used again.
The central core would continue flying for a while before being detached from the upper portion of the rocket which would further blast a payload into orbit. The core, however, would fall back to Earth, landing in Atlantic Ocean on a drone ship and will used for future. Through reusing the rocket parts, Musk desires to reduce the heavy costs of launching things into space.
Back in March, after successfully launching the unprecedented SES-10 mission, Musk exclaimed, “We will probably fly something really silly on Falcon Heavy because it is quite a high-risk mission.”