Falcon Heavy

The U.S. Space Force confirmed Tuesday that a Falcon Heavy launcher placed two main payloads and at least three smaller rideshare satellites directly into a high-altitude geosynchronous orbit after liftoff from Florida, an achievement that checks off one of the final unproven capabilities for SpaceX’s rocket family.

SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, the world’s most powerful operational launch vehicle, lifted off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 9:41 a.m. EDT (1341 GMT) Tuesday on a mission to deliver two U.S. Space Force satellites and multiple rideshare payloads into geosynchronous orbit, a journey that will take about six hours for the rocket’s upper stage. The Falcon Heavy’s two side boosters successfully returned to Cape Canaveral for landing about eight minutes after liftoff.

The first Falcon Heavy rocket flight since 2019 is scheduled Tuesday to kick off SpaceX’s longest-duration launch mission to date, a roughly six-hour climb into geosynchronous orbit more than 20,000 miles over the equator with a bundle of payloads for the U.S. Space Force. The powerful rocket’s two reusable side boosters will return to Cape Canaveral for landing.

NASA says the Psyche mission, a robotic asteroid explorer that missed a launch opportunity this year due to software testing problems, has been rescheduled for liftoff from Florida in October 2023 on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.

SpaceX fired up 27 engines on a Falcon Heavy rocket Thursday night at Kennedy Space Center, sending a rumble across the spaceport in a hold-down test-firing before a launch next week for the U.S. Space Force.

SpaceX rolled its fourth Falcon Heavy rocket to the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center Tuesday night and raised it vertical early Thursday in preparation for a test-firing of its 27 main engines. The static fire test occurred at 8 p.m. EDT Thursday (0000 GMT Friday) in a precursor to the scheduled launch of the Falcon Heavy on a U.S. Space Force satellite delivery mission Nov. 1.

More than three years after SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket last blazed a path into orbit, the 28-engine launcher is finally set to fly again as soon as Oct. 28 from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a long-delayed national security mission for the U.S. Space Force, a military spokesperson said.

NASA announced Tuesday it awarded SpaceX a $255 million contract to launch the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, the agency’s next flagship astronomy mission, on a Falcon Heavy rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in 2026.

NASA’s billion-dollar Psyche asteroid mission will not launch this year, officials confirmed Friday, after delays in completing software verification testing for the spacecraft’s guidance, navigation and control system.