Elon Musk: SpaceX's Falcon Heavy launch will be before end of January

Emre Kelly | Florida Today

Show Caption Hide Caption SpaceX shows off stunning video of Falcon Heavy Fully assembled on the Launchpad.

MELBOURNE, Fla. — SpaceX's much-vaunted Falcon Heavy launch vehicle will roar off a historic Kennedy Space Center pad on its demonstration flight before the end of this month, CEO Elon Musk said Thursday.

Pad 39A, which once played host to Apollo and space shuttle missions, is expected to see the three-core vehicle lift off on a premiere flight that will test one of the company's most technically challenging undertakings to date. But before that, a brief test firing of the rocket's 27 engines is expected sometime next week.

"Falcon Heavy now vertical on the former Apollo 11 moon rocket launchpad," Musk said via Instagram late Thursday while also confirming testing and launch timeframes. "Excitement on launch day guaranteed, one way or another."

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When Falcon Heavy's 27 Merlin engines finally ignite, it will become the most powerful rocket in the world thanks to its 5.1 million pounds of thrust. Only the Apollo era's Saturn V and the space shuttle eclipsed that output.

Secured atop the 230-foot-tall rocket and safely tucked away in a protective payload fairing will be Musk's 2008 Tesla Roadster, an all-electric sports car that boosted his energy company during its formative years. Its destination? Deep space, according to Musk.

After liftoff, an aerial ballet of 156-foot-tall Falcon boosters will take place over Space Coast skies as all three first stages target landings — the two side cores at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Landing Zone 1, and the center core on the company's Of Course I Still Love You drone ship stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.

The tandem landings, however, mean local spectators can expect double the sonic boom energy as the boosters cross the speed of sound threshold. And the sight of two boosters returning is likely to impress, too.

Musk's "one way or another" comments can be traced back to a Washington, D.C., speech last July during which he said Falcon Heavy is one of the most technically complex and difficult projects SpaceX has ever undertaken.

"There's a lot of risk associated with Falcon Heavy," he said during the 2017 International Space Station Research and Development Conference. "Real good chance that the vehicle doesn't make it to orbit. I want to make sure to set expectations accordingly."

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While the 40-foot-wide rocket might simply look like three Falcon 9 cores strapped together, that's a simplification — teams had to strengthen the airframe to account for the two side cores' powerful thrust; re-examine aerodynamics of a three-core vehicle; account for altered acoustics thanks to three times as many engines as a typical launch; and make the appropriate hardware modifications to pad 39A, to name a few.

But the billionaire industrial maverick remained optimistic, noting that people should "come down to the Cape to see the first Falcon Heavy mission."

Before Falcon Heavy's debut flight, though, teams are targeting Sunday for the launch of a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Launch Complex 40 with a classified Northrop Grumman payload known only as Zuma. That mission is expected to launch between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. and also will feature a first stage landing about eight minutes after liftoff.

Follow Emre Kelly on Twitter: @EmreKelly

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