SpaceX Launches First Falcon Heavy Rocket In 3 Years

Florida: The world’s most powerful active rocket, SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, lifted off on Tuesday for the first time in more than three years at Florida’s Cape Canavera.

The rocket system, consisting of three Falcon 9 boosters strapped side-by-side, took off from a SpaceX launch pad, with two satellites from the Space Force and a group of smaller satellites bound for orbit.

The Space Force did not provide details of its satellites and requested that SpaceX end its launch live stream early without showing their deployment.

The mission, the first Falcon Heavy launch since June 2019, had been delayed for years by Space Force, according to SpaceX officials.

The rocket’s debut in 2018 sent a red sports car from Elon Musk’s other company, Tesla, into space as a test payload.

Tuesday’s mission marked the first use of the rocket by the Space Force, a U.S. military branch established under former President Donald Trump to oversee much of the Pentagon’s defense activities in space.

Roughly three minutes after launch, Falcon Heavy’s two side boosters separated from the rocket’s core stage in synchrony about 47 miles (29 km) above ground, diving backward for a supersonic free-fall toward land.