SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket stuns viewers with gorgeous liftoff (photos)

SpaceX’s highly effective Falcon Heavy rocket launch surprised viewers throughout Florida’s space coast this weekend.

A Falcon Heavy lifted off on Sunday (Jan. 15) from NASA’s Kennedy Area Heart in Florida on a labeled mission for the U.S. Space Force referred to as USSF-67.

The Falcon Heavy is probably the most highly effective SpaceX rocket at the moment in operation. It options three modified first levels of the Falcon 9 rocket that launches the overwhelming majority of the corporate’s missions. 

Photographers and videographers acquired nice views of the USSF-67 launch from Titusville and different coastal zones close to Orlando, capturing the Falcon Heavy rising right into a darkish sky, as you possibly can see within the tweets beneath. Viewers have been additionally handled to the Falcon Heavy’s two facet boosters safely touching down on the close by Cape Canaveral Area Pressure Station eight minutes after launch.

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The first payload on USSF-67 was a army communications satellite referred to as Steady Broadcast Augmenting SATCOM 2 (CBAS-2). The mission additionally carried 5 small satellites aboard a payload adapter referred to as the Lengthy Period Propulsive ESPA (LDPE)-3A.

USSF-67 was the fifth Falcon Heavy launch for SpaceX, however solely the second in latest months. The fourth launch of the car, in November 2022, was one other U.S. Area Pressure flight generally known as USSF-44. USSF-44 was the primary Falcon Heavy mission in additional than three years; the delay was primarily resulting from customer delays in getting payloads prepared.

Previous to USSF-44, the opposite Falcon Heavy launches occurred in June 2019, April 2019 and February 2018. The primary flight is known for launching SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk‘s purple Tesla Roadster into orbit around the sun, sporting a model nicknamed Starman within the driver’s seat.

The automobile continues to be on the market in space and can possible hold flying for hundreds of thousands of years earlier than crashing into both Venus or Earth, previous orbit-modeling simulations have mentioned.

Elizabeth Howell is the co-author of “Why Am I Taller (opens in new tab)?” (ECW Press, 2022; with Canadian astronaut Dave Williams), a guide about space medication. Observe her on Twitter @howellspace (opens in new tab). Observe us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or Facebook (opens in new tab).