Billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX has successfully completed the first commercial launch of the Falcon Heavy super-heavy launch vehicle.
Recall that Falcon Heavy is one of the largest launch vehicles in the history of world space rocketry. It can deliver up to 63,8 tons of cargo to low Earth orbit, in the case of a flight to Mars - up to 18,8 tons.
The first test launch of the Falcon Heavy was successfully completed in February last year. Then, the Tesla Roadster electric car owned by Mr. Musk acted as a payload mockup.
This time, the Falcon Heavy rocket launched with a commercial payload - an Arabsat 6A satellite for Saudi Arabia. The launch was carried out from the LC-39A pad, which is located on the territory of the Kennedy Space Center (Florida).
This launch, no doubt, will go down in the history of space exploration. After the launch, SpaceX successfully returned to Earth the side boosters and the first stage of the super-heavy launch vehicle. In particular, the boosters landed at special sites at Cape Canaveral, and the first stage landed on the Of Course I Still Love You floating platform in the Atlantic Ocean.
Thus, for the first time, it was possible to successfully land three blocks of the launch vehicle at once - now they will be used in subsequent launches, which will make it possible to reduce the cost of putting the payload into orbit.
The Arabsat 6A satellite was successfully launched into orbit. This device is designed to provide broadband Internet access, television and radio broadcasting, mobile communications and other telecommunications services in the Middle East, Africa and Europe.
Meanwhile, SpaceX has already signed at least five contracts for the commercial use of the Falcon Heavy super-heavy launch vehicle. Among them are three commercial missions and the launch of the US Air Force Space Command-52 satellite.
We also add that today, April 12, is Cosmonautics Day. It was on this day in 1961 that Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin on the Vostok-1 spacecraft for the first time in the world made an orbital flight around our planet. It happened 58 years ago.
Source: 3dnews.ru