A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket carrying the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s weather satellite Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite U lifts off from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Florida, June 25, 2024. (Photo by Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo / AFP) (Photo by MIGUEL J. RODRIGUEZ CARRILLO/AFP via Getty Images)
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SpaceX is set to launch Falcon Heavy, its big booster rocket setup, for the first time since October 2024 on Wednesday from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. That mission carried NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft, bound for deep space.
The triple-booster vehicle is carrying a new ViaSat commercial broadband satellite. It was originally set for liftoff Monday, but poor weather scrubbed the attempt. After setting the large communications satellite on a trajectory toward a geosynchronous transfer orbit, Heavy’s side boosters will attempt to land back at Cape Canaveral while the central booster will be disposed of in the Atlantic.
Heavy launches in the past have been a spectacle of power and precision, producing more thrust than any other vehicle currently in commercial operation at liftoff, followed by pinpoint, near-simultaneous landings of the dual side boosters several minutes later.
The Falcon Heavy configuration notably has a 100% success rate — which can’t be said of any other SpaceX rocket setup — having nailed all 11 previous launch attempts.
The Big Bridge to Starship
The first Heavy launch was a landmark achievement for SpaceX and CEO Elon Musk in 2018, but it quickly fell out of the company’s long-term roadmap as focus shifted to the much more powerful Super Heavy booster and Starship spacecraft meant to carry humans to the moon, Mars and perhaps beyond.
Footage of Musk rushing from the launch control room to go outside and watch Falcon Heavy’s first-ever ascent through the atmosphere has become the stuff of space legend and meme lore.
The memorable payload of that debut mission was even more memed: the charismatic Starman dummy in Musk’s cherry red Tesla sent on an infinite mission to orbit the sun somewhere between Earth and Mars.
Routine Falcon Heavy Mission at a Critical Moment
This week’s mission marks just the 12th overall flight of Falcon Heavy, out of more than 600 missions flown by the SpaceX Falcon family. The company intends for Starship to handle heavy lift missions in the future, and it’s designing many payloads for the next-generation vehicle, leaving Heavy less in demand.
Musk has said in the past that Heavy was nearly cancelled multiple times due to its complexity. Meanwhile, Starship has continued its elongated campaign of explosive test flights that have delayed his initial ambitions of reaching the moon and Mars by the end of the decade.
The mission comes against the backdrop of a heavily anticipated SpaceX IPO in the coming months, which could target a valuation between $1.5 billion and $2 trillion, according to some sources.
Current and potential future investors will note the launch as perhaps just one of the company’s lesser revenue sources, behind the wildly successful Starlink satellite broadband service. But for rocket nerds, it will remain a reminder of a critical milestone in aerospace engineering and likely a precursor of more impressive accomplishments to come.
Blastoff of Falcon Heavy is currently set for 10:13 a.m. ET on Wednesday from Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center.
