The Falcon Heavy launch: the most powerful operational rocket in the world

Last Updated08/11/2022

Recently, SpaceX launched the Falcon Heavy rocket into a geosynchronous Earth orbit from the Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, U.S.
Fourth launch of the giant rocket system, and the first one in nearly three years since its last launch in 2019.

Claimed to be the most powerful rocket in the world today by a factor of two.
Lifting capacity - ~ 64 metric tonnes - can lift more than twice the payload of the next closest operational vehicle, the Delta IV Heavy.
Height - 70 m, width - 12.2 m and mass - 1,420,788 kg.
Has 27 Merlin engines - generate > 5 million pounds of thrust at lift-off.

June 2019 - carried 24 satellites as part of the Department of Defense’s Space Test Program-2.
Carried 4 NASA technology and science payloads to study:
non-toxic spacecraft fuel
deep space navigation
“bubbles” in electrically-charged layers of Earth’s upper atmosphere,
radiation protection for satellites

Debuted in 2018.
Launched the other two Falcon Heavy missions in 2019.
One carried a TV and phone service satellite to orbit for Saudi Arabia-based Arabsat
carried experimental satellites for the U.S. Department of Defense.

SpaceX is said to be working on even bigger rockets.
Targeting early December to launch its giant Starship rocket system.
For development of a fully reusable transportation system designed to carry both crew and cargo on long-duration interplanetary flights
To help humanity return to the Moon
To travel to Mars and beyond.
Claimed Starship to be the world’s most powerful launch vehicle ever developed -can carry an excess of 100 metric tonnes to Earth orbit.