Watch SpaceX launch the world's most powerful rocket
Tune in Thursday evening, to see SpaceX launch their powerful Falcon Heavy rocket on its first commercial flight to space.
Roughly a year ago, we witnessed SpaceX's triumph as their brand new triple-rocket - the Falcon Heavy - made its first successful test flight.
Now, the private spaceflight company is set to finally launch the Falcon Heavy on its very first operational mission. It sits at Launch Complex 39A, at Kennedy Space Center, prepared to carry the Arabsat-6A Saudi Arabian communications satellite into a geostationary orbit, with a launch window that opens at 6:35 p.m. ET, on Thursday, April 11.
Elon Musk said on Twitter that this launch is the first time that brand new Block 5 boosters are being used for a Falcon Heavy launch. Their caution with the new boosters was noted when they delayed the original April 9 launch date to the next day, on April 10.
According to Eric Ralph of Teslarati.com: "Falcon Heavy Flight 2 is made even more exciting by the fact that both of its Block 5 side boosters will be instrumental to a planned third launch of the SpaceX rocket as few as two months later. According to the US Air Force, an agreement was reached with SpaceX to use the opportunity – an intentionally low-risk mission known as Space Test Program 2 (STP-2) – to gain a much higher-fidelity understanding of how SpaceX launches, lands, refurbishes, and relaunches Falcon boosters."
Forecasters with the US Air Force's 45th Weather Squadron, which is responsible for weather forecasting for space launches from Kennedy Space Center, there is a 90 per cent chance of favourable weather for today's launch.
On Wednesday, forecasters had given an 80 per cent chance of favourable weather, but due to the presence of strong upper-level winds, SpaceX pushed the launch time back, first from 6:30 p.m. ET to 8 p.m. ET, and then to 8:32 p.m. ET. Since that final T-minus 0 time was at the very end of the day's launch window, when those wind conditions persisted past 7:30 p.m., the call was made to scrub the launch for the day, and go for the backup on Thursday.
Watch below, starting at around 6 p.m. ET, Thursday, for the SpaceX livestream of this first commercial flight of what is now the most powerful rocket in the world!
Be sure to watch carefully at roughly 8 minutes after launch, as SpaceX attempts to land both side boosters back at Cape Canaveral, while the central booster makes an attempt to touch down on the droneship, Of Course I Still Love You, out on the Atlantic Ocean.
Sources: SpaceX | Teslarati | US Air Force
