SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy Is Finally Launching After 3 Years

After a three year interruption of its launch, the space rocket will finally be lifting off this November 1. The Falcon Heavy’s launch site will be in NASA's Kennedy Space Center.

After successfully executing the heavy rocket's static fire, the spacecraft manufacturer confirmed that the commencement date would be November 1. The launch has been incorporated to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex's observation timetable, with a blastoff scheduled at approximately 9:40 a.m. EDT.

Before the rocket's liftoff, the 45th Weather Squadron must issue a warning for planes and ships to steer clear of the radar by Saturday in order to avoid accidents.

“This launch culminates years of effort by a dedicated team of mission-focused people from across the U.S. Space Force and SpaceX,” said Brig. Gen. Stephen Purdy, commander of SLD 45, on Thursday.  “The Falcon Heavy is an important element of our overall lift capability, and we’re very excited to be ready for launch.”

The USSF-44 mission is scheduled for launch, being the first of three Department of Defense flights scheduled to use SpaceX's Falcon Heavy, that is basically three Falcon 9 rockets tethered together and powered by 27 Merlin engines to generate approximately 5.1 million pounds of thrust at blastoff and the capability to carry out payloads to higher orbits.

According to Space Force officials, the special space mission will mark the first National Security Space Launch for the Falcon Heavy, with future space missions USSF-67 and USSF-52 already scheduled but with no established launch date. This arrives over 3 years after the rocket's most recent launch, in June 2019, which put 24 experimental satellites in orbit for the Department of Defense's Space Test Program, laying the foundation for all these operations for the Space Force's Space Systems Command.

“Our launch and mission assurance team and SpaceX, along with the fantastic crew at Space Launch Delta 45, have done an absolutely superb job preparing this rocket,” s' said Col. Douglas Pentecost, SSC's Deputy Program Executive Officer for Assured Access to Space. “We put important national capabilities into space to address the threat, and working together we ensure 100% mission success.”

A new rocket prototype is also being developed, which is the SpaceX Starship, which when merged with the Super Heavy booster, will outperform the Falcon Heavy and the other rockets, generating over 16 million pounds of thrust through the use of 33 Raptor engines. This could also make the first ever orbital flight test from SpaceX's Texas facility Starbase before the end of the year.