Falcon Heavy is about to take off in a big way. Just a few months after its thrilling debut, SpaceX’s heavy-lift rocket is back in the headlines. Not for sending another cherry-red Tesla into space, but for gaining some major accolades from the Air Force.

In a surprising move, and after just one flight, the Air Force announced it has certified Falcon Heavy for military launches and awarded the vehicle its first highly coveted launch contract: the AFSPC-52 mission. The contract is valued at $130 million—that’s the price of ferrying the Air Force Space Command-52 satellite to its intended orbit sometime in 2020.

SpaceX wasn’t the only launch provider hoping to snag this sought-after contract. The Air Force said in a press release that more than one launch provider put in a bid. Although United Launch Alliance was not named in the announcement, it is implied that SpaceX’s newly-debuted Falcon Heavy beat out the competition’s tried-and-true Delta IV Heavy—the only other heavy-lift vehicle certified by the Air Force.

“SpaceX is honored by the Air Force’s selection of Falcon Heavy to launch the competitively-awarded AFSPC-52 mission,” SpaceX president and COO Gwynne Shotwell said in a statement released to the media last week. “On behalf of all of our employees, I want to thank the Air Force for certifying Falcon Heavy, awarding us this critically important mission, and for their trust and confidence in our company.”

But SpaceX hasn’t always had the Air Force’s full confidence. In 2015, the aerospace company petitioned the military branch to allow multiple launch providers the chance to compete for lucrative military contracts—contracts that, up until that point, ULA had a monopoly on.

Eventually the Air Force opened the bidding process to any provider that has met its certifications—which now includes just SpaceX and ULA. That process normally requires at least three successful flights for any given vehicle; Falcon 9 was approved in 2015. But the Falcon Heavy is a different matter.

After only one flight, the Air Force decided the heavy lifter had earned its seal of approval. It will still need to fly at least three times before AFSPC-52’s scheduled 2020 launch date to maintain the contract.

This makes the Falcon Heavy—essentially three strapped-together Falcon 9 rockets—a powerful new weapon in SpaceX’s arsenal. According to SpaceX's stats, the Falcon Heavy can deliver 140,660 pounds of mass to low earth orbit and 58,860 pounds to geostationary transfer orbit. For comparison, United Launch Alliance says its Delta IV Heavy can haul 62,540 pounds to LEO and 30,440 pounds to geostationary transfer orbit.

The increased capacity comes with another perk: a lower price. The $130 million associated with this mission is approximately one-third to one-half that of the Delta IV Heavy, which ULA CEO Tory Bruno says costs around $350 million.

SpaceX is also scooping up big bucks from the state of Florida—$14.5 million from Space Florida, the agency that manages the state’s aerospace economic development. The funds will help cover the aerospace company's planned expansions, including a new rocket hangar, a launch-and-landing control center, and a rocket garden that could be used to display retired boosters.

The creation of a new 480,000-square-foot campus would enable SpaceX to store and refurbish large numbers of Falcon rocket boosters and nose cones near the launch pad—supporting its goal of rapid reusability. The company’s current digs include two launch pads, a launch control center nestled inside a small office complex right outside the Air Force station, and facilities at the port where drone ships return with recovered boosters. A hangar adjacent to launchpad 39A is capable of holding only three boosters.

But SpaceX expects that in the future it might have as many as 50 first-stage boosters. If that happens, it will need significantly larger facilities to process the boosters and any other part of the rocket SpaceX is able to reuse.

SpaceX will also need facilities to handle its planned Starlink satellite constellation. To date, the aerospace company has launched only two satellites of potentially thousands. The two experimental broadband satellites—dubbed TinTin A and B—launched in February, and SpaceX aims to start with 800 satellites as early as 2020 or 2021.

Don’t go dreaming of frolicking through SpaceX’s new rocket garden just yet. The proposed expansion still needs to pass Kennedy’s environmental review. But with SpaceX snagging new military contracts, it could take shape soon.

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