Watching the Falcon Heavy fly

In April 2011, at a time when his company’s flagship Falcon 9 rocket had soared skyward only twice, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk scheduled the first launch of the Falcon Heavy. I told myself that whenever that inaugural flight occurred, I would be there to see it.

Seven years, one new job, and 46 successful (and 2 failed) Falcon 9 launches later, I made my way from Washington, DC, to Cape Canaveral for the 6 February event. I couldn’t have chosen a better way to fulfill my childhood dream of seeing a rocket lift off in person.

A rocket worth watching

For all the hype surrounding last week’s debut, it’s important to consider the significance of the Falcon Heavy to the future of spaceflight. The new SpaceX rocket is the first superheavy launch vehicle, which can carry more than 50 000 kg into low-Earth orbit, to leave Earth since the retirement of NASA’s Space Shuttle fleet. The only other successful superheavy rockets were the Saturn V, which powered the Apollo program, and Energia, a short-lived model that the Soviet Union tested twice in the 1980s. Today four other superheavy launch vehicles are under development: NASA’s Space Launch System, Blue Origin’s New Glenn, China’s Long March 9, and SpaceX’s next-generation BFR.

The Falcon Heavy’s three launch boosters, slightly modified from the Falcon 9’s, are each powered by nine of SpaceX’s Merlin rocket engines. The combined 22 819 kN of thrust at launch is more than double that of any currently operating rocket. For comparison, the Space Shuttle boosters and orbiter combined to total 30 160 kN at launch. The Saturn V, the most powerful rocket ever built, produced 35 100 kN.

The primary mission of last week’s launch was to test the rocket’s novel three-booster flight system, which fires more engines simultaneously than any previous successful rocket. After liftoff, the central booster throttles down. Then, once the external boosters separate, the central booster fires until it, too, separates from the interstage section, which is equipped with a single Merlin engine that propels the payload into its final orbit.

The most awe-inducing feature of the Falcon Heavy is the reusability of its boosters. When the launch profile allows, SpaceX plans to land all three—the external ones at landing pads at Kennedy Space Center and the central one on Of Course I Still Love You, the drone ship that has caught several Falcon 9 rockets. Both external boosters used for the Falcon Heavy’s first flight were Falcon 9 boosters that had already launched and landed.

Reusability is the key to SpaceX’s strategy of reducing the cost of spaceflight. The company is charging $150 million for a maximum-lift-capacity flight with no booster recovery and $90 million to lift one-third the mass and recover all three boosters. United Launch Alliance’s Delta IV Heavy, which has about half the maximum lift capacity of the Falcon Heavy, has a per launch price of at least $350 million. Not many companies can afford to launch aboard the Delta IV. The Falcon Heavy’s lower cost could make much more accessible what has been, until now, a pursuit for the few, particularly if companies share the cost of a single launch by including multiple satellites in one payload.

Beyond its lift capabilities, the Falcon Heavy is intended to help fulfill Musk’s goal of sending humans to Mars. Last week’s launch was designed to deliver a payload—in this case the attention-grabbing combination of a Tesla Roadster and a dummy dubbed Starman—into Hohmann transfer orbit, an energy-efficient means of transitioning from one planetary orbit to another. That capability is particularly enticing for NASA and other research organizations that wish to launch planetary science missions but face restricted budgets.

Liftoff day

All those factors made the 6 February launch a must-see event. When I arrived in Port Canaveral just after 9:00am, there was already a sizable collection of vehicles parked along Route 401, which leads to one of the gates of the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The stretch of road where I stopped is just over 13 miles from the launch pad and has a pretty clear line of sight across the Banana River. I could just make out the Falcon Heavy on the pad with the naked eye; NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building was clearly visible just to the left. A good pair of binoculars, a small telescope, or a camera with a quality zoom lens gives a wonderful look at the pad.

By noon, the side of the road was almost completely packed with vehicles, and the local police started instructing folks to park a mile or more down the road and walk over. The weather was delightful—sunny, low 80s, with an occasional strong gust of wind. High upper-atmosphere winds were delaying the launch, and I spent most of the day debating with onlookers whether it would be pushed to the next day. When we heard that launch time was finally set for 3:45pm with “no constraints,” you could feel a frisson pass through the crowd.

As the time approached, many of us pulled up the SpaceX live stream on our phones. Watching the final countdown there, I forgot to account for the one or two seconds of delay. It took me a moment to realize that the rocket had ignited despite seeing the plume on the horizon.

Having watched close-up videos of launches for years, it was disconcerting to witness a launch with no sound but that of the traffic passing nearby. By the time the roar made its dozen-mile journey to our viewing spot, it was noticeably attenuated. The rocket was more than halfway to stage separation by the time we heard it.

Even from afar I could see the flames from the rocket transform from narrow streams to wider plumes as the Falcon Heavy quickly rose into the thinner parts of the atmosphere. The arc of its flight soon hid the rocket from view. There was a muted cheer when someone watching through a highly magnified camera announced booster separation.

After a few minutes of quiet anticipation came the oohs and aahs when the boosters reignited for their return to land. Seeing the two falling along synchronized paths was quite spectacular, and their landing, which also occurred initially in silence, was simply stunning. I saw them slow above the pads before settling down just out of sight behind a line of trees. After another second or two―as we made sure there would be no explosion―everyone erupted. The cheering was punctuated by a pair of sonic booms from the two boosters’ reentries that reached us only after the rockets had safely returned.

Once the show was over, I checked my phone to learn how the rest of the mission had fared. The central booster crashed into the Atlantic, missing the drone ship after two of the three thrusters failed to fire. Starman and the roadster overshot their intended orbit. Still, SpaceX became the first private company to deliver a payload beyond geostationary transfer orbit.

Seeing the rocket launch and booster landing definitely lived up to the hype. Next time I’ll have to get closer. As of now, SpaceX is planning two more opportunities this year, when the Falcon Heavy will carry a test payload for the US Air Force and a satellite for a Saudi Arabian telecom company.