“A momentous lunch” said one of official at U.S. Space and Missile Systems Center
SpaceX marked a milestone as Falcon Heavy Rocket blasted from Kennedy Space Center in Florida containing two dozen of satellites.
For Web: https://www.space.com/spacex-falcon-heavy-stp2-launch-success.html?jwsource=cl
Many officials said that it is one of the most difficult launches ever putting 24 satellites in orbit at 2:30 a.m. EDT on June 25 (06:30 GMT), after three hours delay into the launch window. It was a part of U.S. Air Force’s Space Test Program and carried payloads for universities, NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the nonprofit organization The Planetary Society.
SpaceX successfully landed two of the mega rockets three first-stage boosters. The two side boosters touched down at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, while the central core booster narrowly missed its target SpaceX’s drone ship, Of Course, I Still Love You, which was stationed in the Atlantic Ocean, hundreds of miles off the Florida coast.
Another payload by NASA, the Green Propellant Infusion Mission, will test a cleaner, safer and more efficient fuel alternative to the commonly used hydrazine. Falcon Heavy is the most powerful operational rocket in the world “by a factor of two,” SpaceX said on its website. “The SpaceX Falcon Heavy allows the Air Force to begin using previously flown rocket technology to further reduce the cost of launch,” said Colonel Dennis Bythewood, program executive officer at the Space and Missile Systems Center in Los Angeles