At long last, SpaceX is ready to send its mythical Falcon Heavy rocket on a test flight next week. It's a huge deal, even for a spaceflight company that routinely accomplishes huge deals. An operational Falcon Heavy will make SpaceX the proud owner of the most powerful rocket system since the Saturn V*, and opens up yet another corner of the launch industry to serious competition.
The main goal of the test flight is straightforward: launch something into space without blowing up. CEO Elon Musk, never one to settle for something boring like an inert block of concrete, decided the sacrificial payload would be his Tesla Roadster, aimed for a Mars-adjacent trajectory.
"I love the thought of a car drifting apparently endlessly through space and perhaps being discovered by an alien race millions of years in the future," he said on Twitter.
I'll break down the Tesla aspect of the launch in a followup story coming out Monday, and I'll also be in Florida covering the launch in person. My boss, Planetary Society CEO Bill Nye, is scheduled to make an appearance at the Kennedy Space Center visitor's center. The first launch window opens Tuesday, February 6 at 1:30 p.m. ET (18:30 UT).
*By capacity to low-Earth orbit. After publishing this article, it was also pointed out that the Soviet Energia was more powerful than the Falcon Heavy. It flew twice in 1987 and 1988.
