SpaceX Falcon Heavy Rocket Static-Fire Test Set On Tuesday
SpaceX has yet to announce an official launch date for their new Falcon Heavy rocket but did set a static-fire test which expected to be held on Tuesday at around 4 pm EST. This will bring the world's most powerful rocket one step closer to lift-off and bringing CEO Elon Musk's prized red Tesla to Mars.
The test is set to be held at the rocket's launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The rocket was originally set to be tested on Thursday but was rescheduled first on Friday, and again on Monday, before finally being slated for Tuesday.
The rocket has been in the works for quite a while with its first test flight originally scheduled for 2013. Musk said that their expectations for the technology are pretty high and hopes that the test-fire will not cause too much launch pad damage.
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The rocket is expected to journey 33.9 million miles to Mars and place Musk's red Tesla Roadster in orbit around the red planet. This is the first time such a payload was used for testing causing it to receive a lot of publicity.
SpaceX claims that the Falcon Heavy rocket is the most powerful one operation. Its 27 engines is capable of more than 5 million pounds of thrust, equivalent to 18, 747 aircraft lifting its three cores away and more than 140,000 pounds of cargo way from Earth's gravity and into low orbit.
The three rocket cores are designed to be reused, thereby reducing the overall cost of sending cargo, and people, into space. NASA has been using SpaceX rockets in conjunction with the Dragon capsule to resupply its astronauts working in the International Space Station.
One such capsule recently reentered Earth and was recovered last week in the Pacific Ocean. It carried over 4,000 pounds of cargo which includes test results and even a number of mice.
