Image copyright SPACEX Image caption A big exhaust plume rises over the Kennedy launch pad

America's SpaceX company has conducted a key test ahead of the maiden flight of its new rocket - the Falcon Heavy.

In what is known as a static firing, all 27 engines on the launcher's first stage were ignited together to check they are flight-ready.

The procedure, conducted in Florida, lasted only seconds and the rocket was clamped to keep it on the ground.

The Falcon Heavy will be the most powerful launcher in the world when it eventually lifts off.

Depending on the analysis of Wednesday's test, that could occur within the next fortnight.

Company CEO and chief designer, Elon Musk, tweeted: "Falcon Heavy hold-down firing this morning was good. Generated quite a thunderhead of steam. Launching in a week or so."

Image copyright SPACEX Image caption There are 27 engines at the base of the Falcon Heavy

The Falcon Heavy is essentially three of SpaceX's workhorse Falcon 9 vehicles strapped together.

But the triple-booster configuration has demanded a number of specific alterations, including a strengthening of the central core booster.

The 27 Merlin engines at the base of the rocket should be capable of generating almost 23,000 kilonewtons of thrust - slightly more than double that of the world's current most powerful rocket, the Delta IV Heavy, which is operated by US competitor United Launch Alliance.

Image copyright SPACEX Image caption Landing a booster after launch negates some payload performance

The 70m-tall Falcon Heavy is designed to put up to a maximum of 64 tonnes in low-Earth orbit, although in reality it will be rare that the vehicle lofts this much mass.

SpaceX intends to land the rocket's boosters back on Earth after launch - as is the company's usual practice today with the Falcon 9 - and that necessarily negates some performance.

But the new capability would mean the firm in future has no difficulty launching the biggest military and commercial telecommunications satellites - and is still able to recover all three first-stage boosters.

The introduction of the rocket should also open up some fascinating possibilities to send much bigger payloads beyond Earth orbit than is currently possible. This could include sending astronaut capsules to the Moon, or bigger robots to Mars.

Because the maiden flight of any rocket carries a higher degree of risk, the Falcon Heavy will not take up a meaningful payload when it finally launches.

Instead, Mr Musk has decided to put his old sportscar on the top of the Falcon Heavy. His idea is to send this red roadster towards the orbit Mars takes around the Sun.

Image copyright SPACEX Image caption Elon Musk's roadster is ready to head in the direction of Mars

Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow me on Twitter: @BBCAmos</s>There was some concern over the weekend that SpaceX would need to postpone its Falcon Heavy test program because of the US government shutdown, but the company got back on track very quickly after the budget impasse was (temporarily) solved early this week. SpaceX has successfully test fired the Falcon Heavy for the first time ever, proving that if nothing else, the engines will be able to ignite and send the rocket upward. Everything after that is still unknown.

This milestone was what is known as a static fire test. The rocket was locked to the historic launch pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center for the test, so it didn’t actually go anywhere. The point of this test is to ensure that all 27 Merlin rocket engines on the vehicle could ignite in unison. If even one of the engines fails to work, that could cause a potentially catastrophic imbalance in the vehicle.

The test firing lasted a mere 12 seconds, and you can see the entire event in the video below. The engines created a plume of exhaust, outputting 5.1 million pounds of thrust — that’s about 1.7 million pounds from each of the rocket’s three Falcon 9 cores. Two of them are attached as side boosters, and the center stage has a reinforced superstructure to hold the rocket together. The Falcon Heavy is the most powerful rocket since the Saturn V, which NASA retired at the end of the Apollo program. That rocket also flew from launch complex 39A, making SpaceX’s upcoming launch quite fitting.

SpaceX confirms the static test fire went as expected, clearing the way for a real launch soon. How soon? SpaceX CEO Elon Musk hinted on Twitter that the timeline could be as short as a week. When the Falcon Heavy launches, it will carry Musk’s personal Tesla Roadster into space. There’s no practical reason to launch the car, but SpaceX needed some mass to simulate a real payload, and this is exactly the sort of quirky thing Musk would do.

If the launch goes as well as the static test, the Falcon Heavy’s second stage will carry the car into a Mars-adjacent orbit. The three first stage boosters will come back down for landing like a conventional Falcon 9 launch, but landing all three might be tricky considering the higher speed involved. SpaceX sees the Falcon heavy as a vehicle that could send payloads to the moon, Mars, and even farther into the outer solar system. Of course, Musk leaves open the possibility the first test flight will end in an explosion.</s>SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk recently announced on social media that his company was able to successfully fire all of the Falcon Heavy’s 27 Merlin 1D main engines during a hold-down test at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The launch of the company’s biggest rocket has experienced several delays following SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket launch and landing failures in 2015 and 2016. Musk initially wanted the Falcon Heavy program to officially launch its first rocket in 2013, but that didn’t happen as engineers had to deal with unforeseen issues related to basically strapping three Falcon 9 first stage boosters and launching it as one vehicle. More importantly, Musk wanted the entire thing to be completely reusable, a strategy that brings with it its own set of technical issues.

All of the Falcon Heavy’s 27 engines were ignited at 12:30 p.m. EST on Wednesday, with SpaceX ramping its engines close to full capacity. All in all, the rocket was able to generate around five million pounds of thrust, making it one of the most powerful rockets ever built. The Falcon Heavy rocket’s thrust figures officially exceeded the thrust capacity of the current world’s most powerful active heavy-lift launch vehicle, the Ariane 5. According to SpaceX, the 3.1 million pound rocket should be able to lift around 140,700 pounds into low earth orbit.

After the test, the Falcon Heavy is scheduled to be brought back into SpaceX’s hangar, where it will undergo several tests and final checks for its official first demo launch. Instead of using a traditional dummy satellite as its test payload, Musk had previously announced that he will be loading his own Tesla Roadster on board. The rocket will then attempt to bring the electric sports car into a heliocentric solar orbit, which will take it close to the Sun and around Mars.

Launching the rocket into orbit will just be the first hurdle to overcome as SpaceX is planning to guide and land all three boosters safely back to earth. The first two side boosters will separate from the rocket’s core within less than three minutes after liftoff. The two rockets will then be guided into hopefully uneventful and safe landings at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The center booster will then drop a bit later and land at SpaceX’s mobile recovery barge stationed somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. A smaller upper stage rocket will then continue on to drop the payload into orbit.

The company has yet to officially announce the Falcon Heavy’s inaugural launch, but Musk has teased that it could be happening in just a couple of weeks. Due to its reusable nature, the successful launch and retrieval of the Falcon Heavy could significantly change the space transportation industry by drastically bringing the down cost to bring cargo and passengers into orbit.</s>If all goes to plan, in early February the Falcon Heavy will become the most powerful rocket to take flight since the Saturn V rocket lifted off as part of the Apollo missions to the Moon in the 60s and 70s. It is the evolution of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket and is essentially three of those cores strapped together, meaning a total of 27 engines generate a maximum thrust of 5.1 million pounds, equal to eighteens 747s.

These engines were brought to life for the first time at Cape Canaveral this morning in what is known as a static fire test. This is part of routine launch preparations and sees the engines fired up while the vehicle is pinned to the launchpad with tethers.

These haven't always gone so smoothly for SpaceX, with a static fire test of a Falcon 9 rocket in September 2016 leading to a launchpad explosion and the loss of a multi-million dollar satellite. There were no such problems with this morning's test, however, with Musk confirming on Twitter that things went a little more smoothly.

"Falcon Heavy hold-down firing this morning was good," the CEO tweeted. "Generated quite a thunderhead of steam. Launching in a week or so."

That launch could go either way. Musk has previously said that if the rocket simply makes it far enough after launching to avoid damage to the pad, he would consider that a win. The likelihood of explosions didn't stop the entrepreneur from loading his own midnight cherry red Tesla Roadster into the nosecone as a test payload. You know, just in case he didn't have enough to lose already.

SpaceX shared the following video on Twitter this morning, showing the static fire test in action.</s>There was smoke, there was fire—and, most importantly, nothing on the launch pad appeared to blow up. Shortly after noon ET on Wednesday, SpaceX test fired all 27 engines on its Falcon Heavy rocket, a key step toward launching the massive booster from Florida.

The company did not immediately provide details about the technical performance of the booster during the test. On Twitter, however, company founder Elon Musk said the test fire was "good," and that this cleared the way for a launch within "a week or so." Although the company has not provided a date for launch, it is likely to occur no earlier than some time in early February.

Musk has promised excitement during the launch—either because the most powerful rocket since the space shuttle will take off and soar into space, or there will be some kind of spectacular in-flight anomaly during the test flight. No rocket with three cores and so many engines has successfully launched from Earth before.

Because of the experimental nature of the flight, SpaceX has chosen a whimsical payload, Musk's "midnight cherry Tesla Roadster." The vehicle will be sent in an elongated orbit that will take it out into the Solar System, near Mars. "Will be in deep space for a billion years or so if it doesn't blow up on ascent," Musk said.</s>CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- SpaceX's three-core Falcon Heavy rocket roared to life during a brief test firing of its engines at Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday, giving teams much-needed performance data ahead of its highly anticipated demonstration flight.

When the clock struck 12:30 p.m., the rocket's 27 Merlin main engines ignited for 12 seconds at pad 39A, producing a plume of steam that rose several hundred feet above the historic complex that once hosted the Apollo program's Saturn V and, later, space shuttle missions.

"Falcon Heavy hold-down firing this morning was good. Generated quite a thunderhead of steam," SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said via Twitter just after the test. "Launching in a week or so."

SpaceX does not typically discuss specific results of its test fires, but teams could opt to conduct a second firing before the launch if more data is deemed necessary.

The 5.1 million pounds of thrust that will eventually propel Falcon Heavy off the pad will make it the most powerful rocket in the world, expanding SpaceX's manifest to heavier, more complicated payloads. The moon and Mars are possibilities for the 230-foot-tall vehicle, too.

But hype surrounding the upcoming demonstration flight has been partially energized by a special payload encapsulated in the rocket's protective nose cone, or fairing – Musk's personal 2008 Tesla Roadster, an all-electric sports car, will be hurtled into deep space.

For those watching the premiere flight from the Space Coast, SpaceX's plans to return all three boosters back to Earth should produce impressive visuals. The rocket's two side cores will return to touch down at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Landing Zone 1, while the center core – which burns the longest after liftoff – will target a landing on the company's Of Course I Still Love You drone ship. As usual, the Space Coast can expect sonic booms when the boosters return.

Falcon Heavy looks like three Falcon 9 cores strapped together, but that's a simplification – Musk said teams had to strengthen the airframe to account for thrust changes, re-examine aerodynamics and account for altered acoustics thanks to three time as many engines as a typical Falcon 9 mission. SpaceX also made extensive modifications to pad 39A.

© Gannett Co., Inc. 2018. All Rights Reserved</s>SpaceX fired up its newest, biggest rocket in a critical launch pad test Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2018, advancing toward a long-anticipated test flight possibly in just a week. AP Photo

WASHINGTON: SpaceX's new heavy-lift rocket Falcon Heavy completed its static firing test at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday after multiple delays.

The Falcon Heavy rocket ignited all 27 engines of its first-stage at about 12:30 p.m. American Eastern Standard Time for about 10 seconds, spewing violent exhaust and steam, a video on SpaceX's official twitter showed.

"Falcon Heavy hold-down firing this morning was good. Generated quite a thunderhead of steam," wrote SpaceX CEO Elon Musk in his Twitter post.

He added that the mega-rocket's maiden launch could be just a week away or so.

Previously, Musk said that the rocket would carry a red Tesla Roadster and that the payload be injected into an orbit around the sun that lies between Earth's orbit and Mars' orbit, reports Xinhua.

The Falcon Heavy, a reusable super heavy-lift launch vehicle, is seen as the world's most powerful rocket since NASA's Saturn V.

It is a variant of the Falcon 9 launch vehicle and consists of a strengthened Falcon 9 rocket core with two additional Falcon 9 first stages as strap-on boosters.</s>Falcon Heavy is built on top three of the company's Falcon 9 rocket cores, creating a 27-engine behemoth that should generate the thrust equivalent to about 18 Boeing 747 aircraft at liftoff. Musk has called Falcon Heavy the "most powerful rocket in the world by a factor of two."

Testing delays have pushed back the planned static fire, which is a test where the rocket ignites its engines while strapped to the launchpad.

Falcon Heavy's static fire took place at Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, where the inaugural launch should take place in the next few weeks.

SpaceX did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment.

Although it's built using the first stages of three Falcon 9 rockets, which cost around $62 million a piece, SpaceX says Falcon Heavy will cost only $92 million per launch. That's a fraction of the cost of any existing heavy rocket competitor, with costs running in the hundreds of millions.

SpaceX plans to make Falcon Heavy reusable in the same way as the company's previous rockets. The first stages of Falcon 9 typically return to Earth and land upright on either a landing pad or the company's remote barge. SpaceX then refurbishes the first stages, making it possible to use them again. For Falcon Heavy, this means the two outer rocket cores will return first, with the central core following later.

For the upcoming test flight, the rocket will not carry a customer's payload. Instead, Musk will launch a Tesla Roadster playing David Bowie's "Space Oddity" into "a billion year elliptic Mars orbit." Musk is also CEO of Tesla.</s>The long-awaited Static Fire of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket has been declared a success by SpaceX founder Elon Musk. After this successful test, the first launch of the Falcon Heavy is imminent, with Musk saying in a Tweet, “Falcon Heavy hold-down firing this morning was good. Generated quite a thunderhead of steam. Launching in a week or so.”

This is a significant milestone for the Falcon Heavy, considering that SpaceX initially thought the Heavy’s first flight would be in 2013. The first launch for the Falcon Heavy has always seemed to be tantalizingly out of reach. If space enthusiasts could’ve willed the thing into space, it would’ve launched years ago. But that’s not how it goes.

Developing rockets like the Falcon Heavy is not a simple matter. Even Musk himself admitted this when he said in July, “At first it sounds real easy: you just stick two first stages on as strap-on boosters. But then everything changes. All the loads change; aerodynamics totally change. You’ve tripled the vibration and acoustics.” So it’s not really a surprise that the Falcon Heavy’s development has seen multiple delays.

After first being announced in 2011, the rocket’s first flight was set for 2013. That date came and went, then in 2015 rocket failures postponed the flight. Failures postponed SpaceX again in 2016. New target dates were set for late 2016, then early 2017, then late 2017. But with this successful test, long-suffering space fans can finally breathe a sigh of relief, and their collective sigh will last about as long as the static fire: only a few seconds.

The Falcon Heavy has a total of 27 individual rocket engines, and all 27 of them were fired in this test, though the Heavy never left the launch pad. For those who don’t know, the Falcon Heavy is based on SpaceX’s successful Falcon 9 rocket, a nine-engine machine that made SpaceX the first commercial space company to visit the International Space Station, when the Falcon 9 delivered SpaceX’s Dragon capsule to the ISS in 2012. Since then, the Falcon has a track record of delivering cargo to the ISS and launching satellites into orbit.

The Heavy is like a Falcon 9 with two more 9-engine boosters strapped on. It will be the most powerful rocket in operation, by a large margin. (It won’t be the most powerful rocket in history though. That title still belongs to the Saturn V rocket, last launched in 1973.)

The Falcon Heavy will create 5 million pounds of thrust at lift-off, and will be able to carry about 140,000 lbs, which is about three times what the Falcon can carry. The Falcon’s engine core is reusable, and returns itself to Earth after detaching from the second stage. The Falcon Heavy will do the same, with all three cores returning to Earth for reuse. The two outer cores will return to the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, and the center core will land on a drone ship in the Atlantic. This is part of the genius behind the SpaceX designs: reusable components keep the cost down.

We aren’t exactly sure when the first launch of the Falcon Heavy will be, and its first launch may be a very short flight. It’s possible that it may only get a few feet off the launch pad. At a conference in July, Musk said, “I hope it makes it far enough beyond the pad so that it does not cause pad damage. I would consider even that a win, to be honest.”

We know a few things about the eventual first launch and flight of the Falcon. There won’t be any scientific or commercial payload on-board. Rather, Musk intends to put his own personal Tesla roadster on-board as payload. If successful, it will be the first car to go on a trip around the Sun. (I call Shotgun!) It’s kind of silly to use a rocket to send a car around the Sun, but it will generate publicity. Not only for SpaceX, but for Tesla too.

If the launch is successful, the Falcon Heavy will be open for business. SpaceX already has some customers lined up for the Falcon Heavy, with a Saudi Arabian communications satellite first in line. After that, its second commercial mission will place several satellites in orbit. The US Air Force will be watching these launches closely, with an eye to using the Falcon Heavy for their own purposes.

But the real strength of the Falcon Heavy is not blasting cars on frivolous trips around the Sun, or placing communications satellites in orbit. Its destination is deep space.

Originally, SpaceX planned to use the Falcon Heavy to send people to Mars in a Dragon capsule. They’ve cancelled that idea, but the Heavy still has the capability to send rovers or other cargo to Mars and beyond. Who knows what uses it will be put to, once it has a track record of success.

We’re all eager to see the successful launch of the Falcon heavy, but while we wait for it, we can enjoy this animation from SpaceX.</s>SpaceX says it has the most powerful rocket in the world. And it might soon be ready to fly.

After weeks of waiting, the company's massive new launch vehicle, Falcon Heavy, finally faced a critical test on Monday at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The exercise, known as a static test fire, is designed to test the Heavy engine's health, and collect data on its flight readiness. The rocket fired up its engines for about 10 seconds while keeping the rocket securely attached to a launch pad.

The company confirmed the test fire in a tweet.

Footage of the test fire on YouTube shows massive plumes of smoke swallowing the launch site while the engines give off a deafening roar.

The static fire is one of the last steps SpaceX must take before it can finalize a launch date for the Heavy's inaugural flight.

CEO Elon Musk reported on Twitter that the test fire "was good," and SpaceX will be "launching in a week or so."

When launch time does arrive, it will be a nail-biting moment. Musk said at a conference last year that he expects the test flight to fail.

If it does, Musk's personal Tesla Roadster will be among the wreckage.

He said last month that he wants to send the car to "Mars orbit." SpaceX later clarified that the Heavy will aim for an orbit around the sun that will, at times, put the car the same distance from the sun as Mars.

And if the launch is successful? That will be a quite a show.

The Heavy has three rocket boosters at its base. After launch, SpaceX will attempt to guide all three of those boosters back to Earth.

SpaceX is the only rocket maker in the world that lands boosters after orbital launches. It does so in order to reuse the hardware on future missions, which helps bring down the price of a single launch.

They've recycled rocket boosters many times from Falcon 9 launches. That's the rocket SpaceX has used since 2012.

But there's just one booster on the Falcon 9, compared to the Heavy's three.

The Falcon Heavy will also boast more than double the thrust of the most powerful rocket currently flying: The Delta IV Heavy, which is built by United Launch Alliance. That's a joint venture between legacy aerospace firms Boeing (BA) and Lockheed Martin (LMT).

The Falcon Heavy won't, however, be the most powerful rocket in history. That honor belongs to the Saturn V, the NASA rocket that was used for the Apollo moon landings and was retired in 1973.

The test fire occurred Wednesday after a series of delays as SpaceX worked to ensure the static fire would go smoothly. The test fire was potentially delayed even more thanks to the government shut down over the weekend. That meant government staff weren't around to oversee the test fire.

The rocket is, in fact, years overdue. SpaceX said back in 2011 that the rocket would be ready by 2013. Musk admitted last year that building the rocket was much more difficult than he initially anticipated.
SpaceX conducts the first static fire test of the Falcon Heavy rocket ahead of its maiden flight with Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster as a dummy payload.