In a historic first, SpaceX launched the world’s most powerful operational rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Tuesday. By nailing the giant rocket’s first flight, and landing its two side boosters on the ground, the Hawthorne company set the stage for faster and cheaper launches of satellites — particularly lucrative national security satellites and other cargo.

The test payload for the demonstration mission was SpaceX founder and Chief Executive Elon Musk’s midnight cherry Tesla Roadster. The car was shown by remote camera separating from the rocket and heading out toward Mars, a dummy “Starman” behind the wheel, wearing a SpaceX-designed spacesuit that will eventually be worn by astronauts riding in the company’s Dragon 2 capsule. A sign saying “Don’t Panic!” in all capital letters was seen on the dashboard console.

“I had this image of just a giant explosion on the pad with a wheel bouncing down the road,” Musk said during a post-launch news conference Tuesday afternoon. “Fortunately, that’s not what happened.”

After liftoff, SpaceX attempted to land all three of Falcon Heavy’s boosters back on Earth — two on land and one on a floating platform at sea. Musk had described the attempt as “synchronized aerial ballet.” About eight minutes after liftoff, the two side boosters set down simultaneously on land.

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The rocket’s center core, which was set to touch down on a floating sea platform, did not fare as well. During the news conference, Musk said the booster hit the water at a speed of about 300 mph and was about 328 feet away from the floating platform, taking out two of the drone ship’s thrusters and showering the deck with shrapnel.

Musk said two of three engines on the core did not ignite during the landing attempt. But he said the company was not planning to reuse the core or the two side boosters from this particular mission.

The launch occurred at 12:45 p.m. PST from Launch Complex 39A, the same launch pad where the Saturn V rocket last lifted off to take astronauts to the moon 45 years ago. The launch was originally set for 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, but it was delayed several times Tuesday to wait out high upper-atmosphere winds.

About 4 minutes after launch, the rocket’s fairing — the clamshell-like covering that protects payloads at the top of the rocket — deployed successfully.

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On a conference call with reporters Monday afternoon, Musk said the Tesla would do a “grand tour” through the Van Allen belts, an area of high radiation that surrounds the Earth, as part of a six-hour coast in deep space that is intended to demonstrate to the U.S. Air Force that Falcon Heavy can meet specific orbit-insertion requirements.

If the car survives that environment, then it will continue on to an elliptical orbit around the sun that at times will come close to Mars, with an “extremely tiny” chance it will hit the Red Planet, though Musk said, “I wouldn’t hold your breath.”

The journey of Starman and the Tesla is being live-streamed by SpaceX on YouTube. About 2:50 p.m. Pacific time, the car and its driver were seen drifting through space with Earth looming behind.

Musk said Tuesday that he thought the payload was “silly and fun.”

“I think the imagery of it is something that’s going to get people excited around the world,” he said. “It’s still tripping me out.”

Falcon Heavy is the most powerful U.S. rocket since the Saturn V. First announced to the public in 2011, Falcon Heavy was expected to generate 5.1 million pounds of thrust at liftoff and be capable of carrying more than 140,000 pounds to low-Earth orbit.

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The launch of Falcon Heavy sets SpaceX up as an even more powerful competitor in the private space industry, particularly in terms of heavy-lift capacity. Although other companies, such as Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and Orbital ATK, are also developing giant rockets to hoist heavy payloads to space, Tuesday’s successful launch gives SpaceX several years of lead time, said Marco Caceres, senior space analyst at Teal Group.

“It’s just changing the whole game,” he said. “The fact that you have a brand-new rocket that is the most powerful rocket and it’s a success on the first try, that’s big news.”

With its large payload capacity, the Falcon Heavy is expected to help SpaceX win contracts that require more capability than its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket.

“When you’re talking about highly classified payloads or special missions, you really want to be sure you’ve got capacity,” Ellen Tauscher, former U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, who serves on SpaceX’s board of advisors, said Tuesday.

Analysts have said that the commercial launch market for large satellites is tight and that SpaceX would need to secure new opportunities, such as NASA planetary missions, to maximize its investment in Falcon Heavy — which, on Tuesday, Musk pegged at more than half a billion dollars. But its huge payload capacity and price tag — launches start at $90 million — could change things, said Bill Ostrove, aerospace and defense analyst at Forecast International.

“With a price point at that level, we don’t know what’s going to develop going forward,” he said.

Falcon Heavy won’t even be the largest rocket SpaceX intends to build. On Tuesday, Musk said the rocket’s successful test flight gave him confidence in the company’s upcoming BFR spaceship and rocket system, which he has said will carry people to colonize Mars.

Musk first promised that a demonstration flight of the massive rocket would occur in 2012. But SpaceX, whose full name is Space Exploration Technologies Corp., found that development of the 27-engine behemoth was more difficult than initially expected.

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After a successful static fire almost two weeks ago, anticipation had been building for Falcon Heavy’s first flight. By noon Pacific time Monday, Kennedy Space Center’s visitor center tweeted that no more tickets were available to watch the launch from designated viewing spots.

Musk tried to temper expectations, going as far as to say that there was a “good chance” the rocket would not make it to orbit on the first flight and that he hoped the spacecraft made it “far enough away from the pad that it does not cause pad damage.”

“I would even consider that a win, to be honest,” he told an audience at a space conference in Washington this summer.

Tauscher, who as a representative for California’s 10th Congressional District served on the House Armed Services Committee, said Tuesday that the launch would be an opportunity to learn.

“You have to be innovative,” she said. “You have to be willing to do tests that give you the answers you’re looking for.”

On Monday, Musk told reporters he didn’t feel that stressed about the launch.

“I feel quite giddy and happy, actually,” Musk said. “We’ve done everything we could to maximize the chance of success for this mission.”

samantha.masunaga@latimes.com

Twitter: @smasunaga

UPDATES:

5:15 p.m.: This article was updated with post-launch news conference comments from SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk.

3:15 p.m.: This article was updated with comments from analyst Bill Ostrove.

2:40 p.m.: This article was updated with more details from the launch and comments from analyst Marco Caceres.

1:25 p.m.: This article was updated with more details from the launch.

1:10 p.m.: This article was updated with the launch.

10:45 a.m.: This article was updated with another launch delay.

10:05 a.m.: This article was updated with another launch delay and with comments from Ellen Tauscher, a member of SpaceX’s board of advisors.

9:10 a.m.: This article was updated with a launch delay.

This article was originally published at 5 a.m.</s>SAN FRANCISCO — Seriously people. Forget P.T. Barnum. Elon Musk is who you mean.

When it comes to extravagant marketing moves, few 21st-century entrepreneurs can hold a candle to the SpaceX and Tesla CEO.

Here's the latest: Musk tests out SpaceX's newest, biggest rocket, the Falcon Heavy, on Tuesday in Florida. Riding shotgun will be a new Tesla Roadster featuring a dummy (one assumes) wearing a Musk & Co. space suit. Destination: Mars.

Musk released a few photos of his space-bound red sports car with dummy driver on Instagram Monday, with the simple caption "Starman and Red Roadster." They're seen sitting atop what looks like the nose cone of the Falcon Heavy, a powerful new rocket whose successful inaugural test flight could lead to commercial launches in the fall.

SpaceX also produced an animated video that depicts the planned stages of the Falcon Heavy flight. Set appropriately to David Bowie's Life on Mars?, the animation shows how the three powerful boosters get the Starman and his Tesla Roadster on its way before returning to SpaceX launchpads to be used again.

The Starman, left arm hanging out over the door like some Saturday night hot rodder, is left to placidly guide his mean machine into Martian orbit. If aliens ever caught a glimpse of this sight, there's no telling what they would think.

Musk first teased that he might be up to this memorable stunt in December, shortly after he unveiled the new version of the two-seat electric coupe, effectively stealing the show from his wickedly fast Tesla Semi truck. Both vehicles aren't due for a few years.

Last fall, Musk teased images of the space suits his company was designing along with a crew pod that would be used to take NASA astronauts to the International Space Station.

The entrepreneur, who made his seminal fortune as one of the four men behind PayPal, has been aggressive about pursuing new forms of transportation here and in outer space.

His electric car company is grappling with production snags on its entry-level Model 3, a critical model that could usher in an era of mainstream EVs. He also is trying to sell the nation on solar at time when the current administration is touting traditional fuels such as fossil and coal. And his Boring Company hopes to drill tunnels to accommodate high speed sleds that would shuttle car commuters in their cars past traffic jams at high speeds.

Musk also is know for his rather outlandish sense of humor. After the Boring Company starting selling baseball caps with its droll logo, Musk mentioned that next up for sale on the site would be flamethrowers.

Those quickly sold out, and were promoted with a short clip showing Musk wielding one of the weapons with a childlike grin on his face.

This all means that if the Falcon Heavy gets another run, the giant rocket may get adorned with yet more wares from Musk's big tent — say some Tesla solar roof tiles. Or maybe a Powerwall energy storage device (on sale soon at your neighborhood Home Depot.)</s>The world's most powerful rocket, SpaceX's Falcon Heavy, blasted off on Tuesday on its highly anticipated maiden test flight, carrying CEO Elon Musk's cherry red Tesla Roadster toward an orbit near Mars. With this debut, the Falcon Heavy becomes the most capable launch vehicle out there.

The SpaceX CEO said the challenges of developing the new rocket meant the chances of a successful first outing might be only 50-50.

"I had this image of just a giant explosion on the pad, a wheel bouncing down the road. But fortunately, that's not what happened," Musk told reporters after the event.

Such performance is slightly more than double that of the world's next most powerful rocket, the Delta IV Heavy - but at one-third of the cost, according to Musk.

The rocket carried a playful payload: Mr Musk's red Roadster, an electric sports car built by his other company, Tesla. Strapped inside the car is a mannequin wearing one of SpaceX's spacesuits. They are expected to orbit the sun for hundreds of millions of years.

SpaceX's webcast showed the Tesla Roadster soaring into space, as David Bowie's "Space Oddity" played in the background -- with the words "DON'T PANIC" visible on the dashboard, in an apparent nod to the sci-fi series "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."

Musk said that he expects the Tesla to zoom around in orbit for hundreds of millions of years. “At times it will come extremely close to Mars,” he said. “And there's a tiny chance that it will hit Mars. Extremely tiny.”

The initial Falcon Heavy launch put the sports car into Earth's orbit for six hours, where it beamed its view of the globe. At 9:30 pm ET, the re-firing of a booster rocket sent the car on its way to Mars' orbit, passing SpaceX's headquarters in Hawthorne, California, just south of Los Angeles.

NASA is currently building a heavy-lift rocket of its own, the Space Launch System, or SLS, that will surpass the Heavy in lift-off and payload capacity and is supposed to someday return humans to the moon. But the first flight of the SLS is expected to take place in late 2019, and delays could push that even further. So SpaceX seems to be holding onto the record for quite some time to come.

At an estimated $90 million per launch, the Falcon Heavy is the cheapest heavy-lift launch option for potential customers ranging from commercial satellite companies to even NASA.</s>SpaceX’s new rocket the Falcon Heavy has blasted off on its first test flight, carrying a red sports car on an endless road trip past Mars.

The rocket rose from the same Florida launch pad used by Nasa nearly 50 years ago to send men to the moon.

With liftoff, the Heavy became the most powerful rocket in use today.

The three boosters and 27 engines roared to life at Kennedy Space Centre, where thousands gathered to watch the launch, which had been delayed by high wind.

Two of the boosters are recycled and programmed to return for another touchdown on land.

The third is new and has its sights on an ocean platform.

SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk owns the rocketing Tesla Roadster, which is aiming for a solar orbit reaching Mars.</s>CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The first-ever test flight for SpaceX’s monstrous new rocket is planned for Tuesday.

It’s called Falcon Heavy and it’ll become the most powerful rocket in use.

WATCH LIVE: SpaceX launches the Falcon Heavy, the rocket that could go to Mars

The rocket is poised for its first test at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Takeoff is slated to happen Tuesday between 10:30 a.m. PST and 1 p.m. PST.

“People [came] from all around the world to see what will either be a great rocket launch or the best fireworks display they’ve ever seen,” Elon Musk said in an interview with CNN’s Rachel Crane.

If Tuesday doesn’t work out, due to weather or some other delay, there’s a backup launch window on Wednesday.

Why all the buzz for this launch?

For one, this rocket is built by SpaceX, the game-changing company helmed by billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

SpaceX has shaken up the rocket industry by becoming the first company to successfully reuse rocket boosters in order bring down the cost of space flight. To do that, it guides the rockets back to Earth for a safe landing after they send their payloads into orbit.

So far, SpaceX has safely recaptured first-stage boosters after 21 of its 40-plus Falcon 9 launches.

The Falcon Heavy rocket is essentially three Falcon 9s strapped together, which means there are three first-stage rocket boosters.

SpaceX will try to guide all three of those boosters back to Earth after launch. Two will attempt a synchronized landing back at Kennedy Space Center, and the third will land on a droneship.

It should also be noted that two of those rocket boosters are actually used Falcon 9 boosters that have flown on previous missions.

And Musk has thrown in a branding stunt with this launch.

Most first-time rocket test flights have a dummy payload on board. But instead of a hunk of metal, Musk has opted to send his personal Tesla roadster to space with this launch.

The plan is to send the car into an orbit around the Sun that will, at times, be as far away from the Sun as Mars. Musk says the car will play an endless loop of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity.”

Of course, there’s a chance this rocket doesn’t make it to orbit. Because of its design, it’s extremely difficult to test this rocket on the ground. So SpaceX says putting it on a launch pad and seeing if it flies is the next step in the design process.

SpaceX has taken a long time preparing for this test launch. The company said back in 2011 that the rocket would be ready in 2013. That target eventually moved to November 2017, then December.

But now, with a firm launch date in place, it’s clear the company is dead set on getting this rocket in the air.

If you’re not lucky enough to be in the Cape Canaveral area, you can watch the launch online here.</s>However, it will be some time before we know whether the Falcon Heavy's demo flight was a full success. After liftoff, the rocket will coast for six hours before a trans-Mars injection burn. Elon Musk revealed the details of the Falcon Heavy mission in a conference call with the press earlier this week and emphasized the risks at every stage of the flight.

The successful launch of the Falcon Heavy signals a giant step forward in spaceflight; it is the most powerful operational rocket in the world. The rocket has a few more launches scheduled, but now that SpaceX has demonstrated that it works (and assuming the mission goes well), it's likely more customers will be interested in the Falcon Heavy.

Update, 4:19 PM ET: We're still not sure what's going on with the core booster. We'll update as soon as there's word from SpaceX.

Update: 4:40 PM ET: Looks like the upper stage of the rocket is performing as expected, according to Elon Musk.</s>SpaceX has done it again.

The pioneering rocket firm just pulled off the unexpected, and carried out what appears to be a seamless first-ever launch of its massive new rocket, called Falcon Heavy.

That makes SpaceX, the game-changing company helmed by billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk, the owner of the world's most powerful operational rocket.

Falcon Heavy took flight Tuesday around 3:45 pm ET from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

"I'm still trying to absorb everything that happened because it's still kind of surreal to me," Musk told reporters after the launch.

Thousands of onlookers in Florida could be heard cheering on the company's livestream, which was viewed by about 3 million people.

In the run up to launch, it wasn't at all clear that the rocket would work.

"People [came] from all around the world to see what will either be a great rocket launch or the best fireworks display they've ever seen," Musk said in an interview with CNN's Rachel Crane Monday.

Related: Falcon Heavy: How it stacks up with other massive rockets

The rocket's smooth takeoff wasn't the only stunning thing about this launch.

In a never-before-seen feat, SpaceX also managed to guide at least two of the Falcon Heavy's first-stage rocket boosters to land upright back on Earth. They cut back through the Earth's atmosphere and landed in unison at a Kennedy Space Center landing pad.

"That was probably the most exciting thing I've ever seen -- literally ever," Musk said.

The third booster was supposed to land on a sea-faring platform called a droneship -- but just as it was about to land, the livestream cut out. Musk confirmed after the launch that the booster made a crashed.

On board the rocket that's now headed deeper into space is Musk's personal Tesla (TSLA) roadster. At the wheel is a dummy dressed in a spacesuit. Musk said in December the car would play David Bowie's "Space Oddity" on repeat. Cameras on board the car show it cruising by Earth, which appears as a big blue orb in the background. Musk plans to send the car into orbit around the sun.

He announced last year he planned to put his car on the inaugural Falcon Heavy flight. When asked on Twitter why he wanted to throw away a $100,000 vehicle, he replied, "I love the thought of a car drifting apparently endlessly through space and perhaps being discovered by an alien race millions of years in the future."

Related: Everything you need to know about SpaceX's Falcon Heavy

Tuesday's success marked a huge step forward for a company that's already managed to shake up the rocket industry with its groundbreaking technology.

The company made the world take notice when it proved it can safely return first-stage rocket boosters to Earth with its Falcon 9 rocket, which the company has used for more than 40 missions dating back to 2012.

Those rockets have a single first-stage booster, and SpaceX has safely recaptured them after 21 Falcon 9 launches.

Now, SpaceX routinely puts used boosters back to work. In fact, the inaugural Falcon Heavy flight actually used two pre-flown Falcon 9 boosters (the center booster was new.)

Reusing hardware is part of SpaceX's plan to drive down the cost of launches.

Before SpaceX came along, companies just discarded rockets after each mission.

Note the Falcon Heavy is not the most powerful rocket in history. That honor belongs to NASA's Saturn V rocket, which was used for the Apollo moon landings and was retired in the 1970s.</s>CAPE CANAVERAL: The world’s most powerful rocket, SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, blasted off Tuesday on its highly anticipated maiden test flight, carrying CEO Elon Musk’s cherry red Tesla Roadster toward an orbit near Mars.

Screams and cheers erupted at mission control in Cape Canaveral, Florida as the massive rocket fired its 27 engines and rumbled into the blue sky over the same NASA launchpad that served as a base for the US missions to the Moon four decades ago.

“The mission went as well as one could have hoped,” an ecstatic Musk told reporters after the launch, calling it “probably the most exciting thing I have seen literally ever.”

“I had this image of a giant explosion on the pad with a wheel bouncing down the road with the Tesla logo landing somewhere,” he said. “Fortunately that is not what happened.”

Loaded with Musk’s red Tesla and a mannequin in a spacesuit, the monster rocket’s historic test voyage captured the world’s imagination.

SpaceX’s webcast showed the Tesla Roadster soaring into space, as David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” played in the background — with the words “DON’T PANIC” visible on the dashboard, in an apparent nod to the sci-fi series the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.”

Musk posted a live video showing the “Starman” mannequin appearing to cruise, its gloved hand on the wheel, through the darkness of space, with the Earth’s image reflected on the car’s glossy red surface.

If the Roadster survives its five-hour journey through the Van Allen Belt — a region of high radiation where it will be pelted with charged particles — it will attempt a final burn toward Mars, Musk said.

Then, the car would enter an orbit around the Sun that brings it close to Mars, on a journey that could last a billion years and take it as far as 250 million miles (400 million kilometers) from Earth, the same as a trip around the equator 10,000 times.

“Maybe it will be discovered by some future alien race,” Musk told reporters. “What were these guys doing? Did they worship this car?” he mused.

More about the status of the car’s journey is expected in the coming hours.

The Roadster was also outfitted with a data storage unit containing Isaac Asimov’s science fiction book series, the Foundation Trilogy, and a plaque bearing the names of 6,000 SpaceX employees.

About two minutes into the flight, the two side boosters peeled away from the center core and made their way back toward Earth for an upright landing.

Both rockets landed side by side in unison on launchpads, live video images showed.

The third, center booster failed to land on an ocean platform — known as a droneship — as planned.

“It didn’t have enough propellant,” Musk said, adding that it plunged into the ocean about 100 meters (yards) away from its landing point.

“Apparently it hit the water at 300 miles (480 kilometers) an hour and took out two of the engines,” he added.

Experts said the launch would likely catch the eye of the US space agency NASA, which may consider using the Falcon Heavy as a way to fast-track its plans to reach the Moon again for the first time since 1972.

Kennedy Space Center Director Bob Cabana said “the successful launch of a new vehicle on its first flight is a significant accomplishment they can be very proud of.”

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield tweeted: “What we’re watching is @SpaceX leaving all other rocket companies in the dust. Congrats to everyone there!”

The Falcon Heavy launched from the same NASA pad that was the base for the Apollo-era Moon missions of the 1960s and 1970s.

It is “the most powerful operational rocket in the world by a factor of two,” SpaceX said.

That means it can carry twice the payload of United Launch Alliance’s Delta IV Heavy, at a far lower cost — about $90 million per launch compared to $350 million for its competitor.

But the Falcon Heavy is not the most powerful rocket ever — just the biggest in operation today.

The Saturn V rocket that propelled astronauts to the Moon could deliver more payload to orbit. The Soviet-era Energia, which flew twice in 1987 and 1988, was also more powerful.

The Falcon Heavy is essentially three smaller, Falcon 9 rockets strapped together, adding up to a total of 27 engines.

The 230-foot (70-meter) tall rocket is designed to carry nearly 141,000 pounds (64 metric tonnes) into orbit — more than the mass of a fully loaded 737 jetliner.

It was initially intended to restore the possibility of sending humans to the Moon or Mars, but those plans have shifted and now the Falcon Heavy is being considered mainly as a potential equipment carrier to these deep space destinations, Musk said Monday.

Instead, another rocket and spaceship combination being developed by SpaceX, nicknamed BFR — alternately known as “Big Fucking Rocket,” or “Big Falcon Rocket” — would be the vehicle eventually certified for travelers. AFP</s>The Falcon Heavy rocket will launch from the same pad that NASA used for Apollo 11 that saw Neal Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin whisked away to the moon - it will also be the most powerful launch since the Saturn V. The paperwork refers to the “modified Tesla Roadster (mass simulator)” that is contained within the rocket and will be launched into space. It reads: “’Flight’ shall mean the flight of a Falcon Heavy launch vehicle, commencing with the ignition of the first stage from Kennedy Space Centre (KSC) and transporting the modified Tesla Roadster to a hyperbolic orbit. “Flight includes landing of the Falcon Heavy first stage core and side boosters as indicated in the license application.

“A flight is concluded upon SpaceX's last exercise of control over the Falcon Heavy vehicle, including the de-arming of Falcon Heavy vehicle stages or components that reach a hyperbolic orbit.” Mr Musk added that the destination of the Roadster “is Mars' orbit” as he joked that it will sit in “deep space for a billion years” as long as it does not “blow up on ascent”. He tweeted: “Payload will be my midnight cherry Tesla Roadster playing Space Oddity. Destination is Mars orbit. “Will be in deep space for a billion years or so if it doesn’t blow up on the ascent.”

SpaceX is targeting its launch for 10.30am PT (18.30pm GMT) tomorrow. However, it is possible that the launch is delayed due to the size and scope of the project. Assuming the takeoff is successful, the Falcon Heavy will attempt to land at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station by using its trio of rockets in harmony.

Three rockets remarkably similar to the Falcon 9 are put together on the Heavy that provides it with an incredible amount of power. The Heavy is able to lift roughly 64 metric tons into orbit - a weight heavier than a 737 jet full of passengers and crew. Last year, Elon Musk remarked that the launch has a “really good chance” that it does not make it into orbit.</s>No one makes news like Elon Musk makes news. That’s what happens when you’re the founder of a rocket company, a co-founder of an electric car and solar panel company, a co-founder of PayPal and, not for nothing, have an actual movie superhero—Iron Man—based partly on you. So when Elon Musk says he’s going to launch the most powerful rocket in the world from the very same launch pad that sent the Apollo 11 astronauts to the moon, he’s going to get a little attention.

That’s exactly the big event Musk is touting Tuesday. The rocket he’s preparing to launch is SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, long delayed but finally ready for liftoff. It’s currently sitting on Cape Canaveral’s historic Pad 39A, with its first launch window opening at 1:30 p.m. ET on Tuesday, Feb. 6, and closing at 4 p.m. When launched, Falcon Heavy will carry a cherry red Tesla Roadster with a dummy wearing a SpaceX spacesuit in the driver’s seat. If all goes well, the Roadster will eventually be placed into orbit around the sun, because, well, why not?

“Test flights of new rockets usually contain mass simulators in the form of concrete or steel blocks,” Musk wrote on Instagram. “That seemed extremely boring. . . . We decided to send something unusual, something that made us feel.”

That’s the showman part of Musk. But what about the rocket man? Does the Falcon Heavy launch matter as much as all the hype suggests? Maybe.

Musk is telling the stone truth when he says his Falcon Heavy will be the most powerful rocket in the world. It will pack up to 5.5 million lbs. (2.5 million kg) of thrust in its first stage, and will be able to lift 141,000 lbs. (64,000 kg) of payload to low-Earth orbit (LEO). That makes it more than twice as powerful as its two main competitors, the Delta IV and the Atlas V. It can lift more than twice as much as those rockets too.

But while the Falcon Heavy is the biggest rocket at large today, it’s by no means the biggest that ever was. NASA’s venerable Saturn V moon rocket had a staggering 7.5 million lbs. (3.4 million kg) of thrust at launch and the power to put 261,000 lbs. (118,000 kg) to LEO. NASA has plans to beat even that. The prosaically named Space Launch System (SLS), the agency’s next generation heavy lift rocket, is designed to pack 9 million lbs (4 million kg) of punch and lift 290,000 lbs. (132,000 kg).

The catch is that the Saturn V was mothballed in 1973, while the first SLS won’t fly until 2019—if then—and it will initially be a smaller version than the final heavy-lift model. That does leave the Falcon Heavy as the likely soon-to-be reigning champ.

So Musk has size on his side. Does he also have price? He claims he does. The Atlas V costs about $109 million per launch, depending on cargo and insurance rates; the bigger Delta IV can go for up to $400 million. Musk boasts of prices starting at $90 million for his rocket.

The Falcon Heavy’s lower price tag comes thanks to some money-saving features. SpaceX reuses its empty boosters, landing them on pads back on solid Earth or on floating barges and then recycling them for future launches. The company has also streamlined its production methods. Rather than producing a bunch of different engines with a bunch of different horsepower ratings, SpaceX has just one, the Merlin. The more powerful a rocket has to be, the more Merlins are bundled into its first stage.

If Musk can deliver heavy lift at a low price, he could energize the entire rocketry sector, bringing the much-touted power of commercial competition to an industry that has been able to fatten up on a consistent diet of defense contracts without having to innovate much. More important, heavy-lift boosters are technology you can use not just to get to Earth orbit, but to get out of it too, pressing on to deep-space destinations like the moon and Mars.

There are a few big obstacles that must be overcome for that kind of success to be realized, however. Low prices for big rockets have been promised before. When NASA was first designing the space shuttle, it predicted it could slash the cost-per-pound of carrying payload to orbit to less than $700, corrected for inflation. The actual price wound up being closer to $27,000 per pound.

Musk himself is another reason to be skeptical. His taste for showmanship has seen him promise all kinds of things in the past and then either walk them back or just stop talking about them altogether. Remember in early 2017 when he said he would send two paying astronauts on a trip around the moon and back at the end of 2018? No? He’s probably just as happy if you don’t. Ditto his plan to start colonizing Mars by 2024. The Falcon Heavy, which is already sitting on the pad and ready to to fly, is much more than just happy-talk. But the promises of affordability still have to be met.

Then there’s the design of the rocket, especially those bundled Merlins. SpaceX’s initial test rockets flew on just one Merlin. The workhorse of the fleet is the Falcon 9 which, as its name implies, uses a cluster of nine engines. The Falcon Heavy uses three of those clusters. That’s 27 first stage engines in total compared to the Saturn V’s five, the SLS’s four and the Delta IV’s three. The Atlas V, which can be configured with different numbers of first stage engines, maxes out at six. The more engines you have, the greater the risk of any one of them breaking down or blowing up and igniting the whole bundle. Acoustic resonance—basically out of control vibrations—also increases as the engine count climbs. Wonder how messy an accident with a rocket like that can get? Consider the Soviet Union’s heavy-lift N-1 booster, the country’s intended answer to the Saturn V. The vehicle packed 30 engines into its first stage and, during a launch attempt in 1969 — just 17 days before Apollo 11 landed on the moon — it all blew up, causing the largest non-nuclear explosion ever unleashed by humankind.

The Falcon Heavy is unlikely to come to such an end. The only good thing about failures like the N-1 is that they are learning experiences, teaching designers how to avoid similar catastrophes in the future. But there are a thousand other, less dramatic ways that things could come undone. If the Falcon Heavy does launch, it’s likely to be a grand, rollicking show. Whether the new rocket can deliver more than just live-streamed thrills will not be known for a while.
SpaceX successfully launches its Falcon Heavy rocket, a feat the space company hopes will lead to increased commercial and national security missions. Both boosters were successfully landed and recovered. The core didn't land and was softly ditched in the water near the drone ship. The rocket launched Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster, playing "Life on Mars" by David Bowie, which is expected to be in an elliptic orbit of the sun, close to Mars, for several hundred million years.