SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk released the first images of his company’s Falcon Heavy rocket Wednesday, showing the massive triple-core booster almost fully assembled inside its hangar at the Kennedy Space Center’s pad 39A, where it is scheduled to lift off some time in January.
SpaceX founder and chief executive Elon Musk tweeted Friday that his red Tesla Roadster will head for deep space on the maiden flight of the company’s Falcon Heavy rocket as soon as next month, and do it to the tune of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity.”
SpaceX’s first Falcon Heavy rocket is expected to roll out to pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center for the first time next month for a hold-down firing of its 27 Merlin main engines, but the mega-rocket’s inaugural test launch will slip into January, officials confirmed Tuesday.
When SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket finally takes off for the first time, a debut now scheduled this fall, there’s a good chance the commercial heavy-lifter will falter short of reaching orbit, company founder and chief designer Elon Musk said last week.
The center section of SpaceX’s first Falcon Heavy rocket has been test-fired at the launch company’s test facility in Central Texas, a sign of progress toward the behemoth booster’s long-delayed maiden mission scheduled some time in the final months of 2017.