SpaceX will test-launch its Falcon Heavy rocket in a couple of hours, the first launch ever for the new Heavy-lift orbital rocket. The current Heavy Flacon's thrust is generated by its 27 Merlin engines, which is three times the number of engines you’d find in the normal Falcon 9 rocket.
All this power amounts to over 5 million pounds of thrust, and a total cargo capacity of around 119,000 pounds. That gives it more than double the total freight moving power of its next closest competitor, NASA’s Saturn V rocket, which flew its last mission in 1973.
It won’t be using all that carrying capacity this time around, however – the payload for this first test launch is a Tesla Roadster, loaded up with a dummy wearing SpaceX suit for its planned Dragon crew missions, and destined for elliptical orbit of Mars.
Falcon Heavy’s boosters will also make a return journey after the launch, with two landing at LZ-1 and LZ-2 on land at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, and with the third, central booster coming back to SpaceX’s ‘Of Course I Still Love You’ drone landing barge.
The two side cores used for the launch are reused cores from the previous Falcon 9 first stage rockets mission run by SpaceX in 2016. The cores were refurbished and assembled for this purpose.
The launch is set for 1:30 PM EST (10:30 AM PST), with a window that spans two and a half hours and closes at 4 PM EST. Also, a backup window is set in place for the same time on February 7, in case they have to abort the launch.