Launch Detail
Pulling launch timing, vehicle context, weather signals, and mission evidence.
Launch detail
SpaceX • Falcon Heavy • Launch Complex 39A (FL)
SpaceX • Falcon Heavy • LC-39A
This will be the inaugural flight of the Falcon Heavy. The test payload will be SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's midnight cherry Tesla Roadster playing Space Oddity. Destination: An elliptical, heliocentric orbit. Apoapsis: Around Mars' orbital distance.
Open the launch pad in Google Maps satellite mode using the pad coordinates.
This will be the inaugural flight of the Falcon Heavy. The test payload will be SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's midnight cherry Tesla Roadster playing Space Oddity. Destination: An elliptical, heliocentric orbit. Apoapsis: Around Mars' orbital distance.
The Falcon Heavy is a variant of the Falcon 9 full thrust launch vehicle and consists of a standard Falcon 9 rocket core, with two additional boosters derived from the Falcon 9 first stage.
Space Exploration Technologies Corp., known as SpaceX, is an American aerospace manufacturer and space transport services company headquartered in Hawthorne, California. It was founded in 2002 by entrepreneur Elon Musk with the goal of reducing space transportation costs and enabling the colonization of Mars. SpaceX operates from many pads, on the East Coast of the US they operate from SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and historic LC-39A at Kennedy Space Center. They also operate from SLC-4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, usually for polar launches. Another launch site is being developed at Boca Chica, Texas.
Linked via Spaceflight News API (SNAPI).
Provider, rocket, pad, and booster history tied to this launch.
Core-level mission cadence associated with this launch.
Launch-stage and landing context surfaced from LL2 when it exists.
Retired; on permanent display indoors at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.
Retired.
Two of the outer engines didn't re-ignite for the landing burn, ran out of TEA/TEB igniters.
Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster is an electric sports car that served as the dummy payload for the February 2018 Falcon Heavy test flight and became an artificial satellite of the Sun. "Starman", a mannequin dressed in a spacesuit, occupies the driver's seat. The car and rocket are products of Tesla and SpaceX, respectively, both companies founded by Elon Musk. The 2008-model Roadster was previously used by Musk for commuting to work, and is the only production car in space. The car, mounted on the rocket's second stage, acquired enough velocity to escape Earth's gravity and enter an elliptical heliocentric orbit crossing the orbit of Mars. The orbit reaches a maximum distance from the Sun at aphelion of 1.66 astronomical units (au). During the early portion of the voyage outside the Earth's atmosphere, live video was transmitted back to the mission control center and live-streamed for slightly over four hours.
