Do you know about the most powerful rocket in the world?
Its name is the Falcon Heavy and it was launched on February 6th, 2018 by SpaceX. This rocket is designed to deliver a maximum payload to low-Earth orbit of 64 tonnes, the equivalent of putting five London double-decker buses in space.
The Falcon Heavy is essentially composed from three of SpaceX´s previous rocket, the Falcon 9 vehicles, strapped together. The lower segments of the rocket successfully returned to Earth to attempt controlled landings and reusing the rocket in later launches. Two rockets came back on touchdown zones on the Florida coast just south of Kennedy, after that their landing legs made contact with the ground virtually at the same time.
“That was epic” said Mr Musk, “That’s probably the most exciting thing that I´ve ever seen in my whole life, literally”.
A third booster was destroyed because this was due to settle on a drone ship stationed several hundred kilometres out at sea but unfortunately it was unable to slow its descent by re-igniting sufficient engines, missed the target vessel and was destroyed as it hit the water at some 500km/h.
Everyone agrees this is a monumental feat, as SpaceX and Elon Musk plan to send a rocket like this one to Mars and beyond in the near future.
