You can now witness the incredible action live event right when SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket blasts off for the sixth time today (April 27). The much-awaited event will finally take place at 7:29 p.m. EDT (23:29 GMT), where the powerful Falcon Heavy is slated to blast off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Watch the launch live online on Space.com or on the company’s official YouTube channel.
ViaSat-3 Americas, a broadband satellite weighing 6,400 kilograms (14,000 pounds) that Viasat will manage, is the main payload of today’s flight. Arcturus, a communications satellite that Astranis Space Technologies will run, is the second satellite to launch today.
SpaceX’s most powerful rocket is definitely the Falcon Heavy. However, the company’s enormous Starship spacecraft claimed that honor with its first liftoff on April 20. This test flight reached a maximum height of 39 kilometers (24 miles), and for safety reasons, it was terminated with a controlled explosion over the Gulf of Mexico.
COOL FACT: 3 initial stages of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket are fastened together to become the Falcon Heavy; the payload and an upper stage are placed on top of the center boost
EverydayAstronaut.com released a statement describing Arcturus:
Although it only weighs 300 kg [660 pounds], the mighty communications satellite has the ability to provide data throughput up to 7.5 Gbps for … Alaska and the surrounding region.
What’s even better is how the first-stage boosters on the Falcon Heavy’s three stages are intended to be reused. But there’s a catch! Since none of the rockets will have enough fuel to safely glide down to Earth for a vertical touchdown, none will be recovered during today’s mission.
Other cool facts
According to SpaceX, the 33 first-stage Raptor engines on Starship can highly produce up to 16.7 million pounds of thrust during takeoff. That is actually about twice as much as the second-place vehicle, NASA’s Space Launch System mega-rocket, and surprisingly three times as much as the Falcon Heavy.