After years of delay, SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy turns on its engines for the first time.
The wait is over, and after years of delays SpaceX has fired all three Falcon Heavy rocket engines for the first time simultaneously. It has not been to make it take off, that will be the next step, but rather to verify that they can start the engines without blowing everything up.
Elon Musk’s space company announced this rocket in 2011, but its staging has been delayed as its engineers searched the way to keep the three drivers together Falcon9 and its 27 Merlin engines, keeping all of them on the same correct trajectory when fired up. You can see the result of these years of work in the following video.
As you can see, it was a static test in which the engines were kept on for twelve seconds on the launch pad. It may be that to some the test is little, but we are talking about the one that will become the most powerful operational rocket in the world once they make it take off.
Falcon Heavy hold-down firing this morning was good. Generated remove a thunderhead of steam. Launching in a week or so. pic.twitter.com/npaqatbNir
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 24, 2018
Once this procedure has been passed and it has been verified that nothing has blown up, the next step will be to take off the Falcon Heavy for the first time. There is still no official date for this, but Elon Musk has already dropped on his Twitter account that they could do it in about a week. It will be necessary to see if there are or not there are more delays, that will depend on the data that they have obtained with the test.
My raw video of the #SpaceX Falcon Heavy static-fire at Kennedy Space Center. Come for the cloud plumes, stay for the sound.
A French space reporter just yelled “It’s like the 4th of July!” pic.twitter.com/vJssukqgIz
– Robin Seemangal (@nova_road) January 24, 2018
As it is launched for the first time, Musk himself said in his day that most likely everything will explode within seconds. Despite this, we would be facing the first attempt to lift the flight of a rocket that in the future should be able to make its three engines land after takeoff in three different places.
A super rocket to continue financing SpaceX
In the beginning, the Falcon Heavy was called to be the rocket that took man to Mars. But in September of last year, the entire business plan of the company was redefined to replace the ‘Falcon 9’, ‘Falcon Heavy’ and ‘Dragon’ by a single more versatile spacecraft. With this, the resources used for the three projects can be applied to a single system.
However, this is not the end of the Falcon Heavy, as it remains a vital project for the future of SpaceX. In announcing their new plans for Mars, Elon Musk assured that they would continue to temporarily manufacture the Falcon 9, the Falcon Heavy and the Dragon 2 capsule. to be able to reserve them to clients who prefer to use these systems because they have already proven their reliability.
Come on, the development of the Falcon Heavy will not only help develop the future SpaceX spacecraft, but once its reliability has been proven it will serve to reserve it for its commercial customers and continue financing the company and the development of its future plans. So we still have a lot to talk about this three-engine rocket.
In Engadget | Elon Musk redefines his plan for Mars: he will replace Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy and Dragon with a single spacecraft
In Engadget | Launch of the Falcon Heavy
