Falcon 9 Realistic Flight with Landing Legs // Spaceflight Simulator Space One Discord server: https.
In a jaw-dropping tour de force, SpaceX has successfully completed the vast majority of Falcon Heavy’s inaugural test launch. Ultimately, the booster stages of Falcon Heavy flew back to Cape Canaveral just like any other “routine” Falcon 9 recovery, albeit with a synchronization so perfect that it looked exactly as if SpaceX had simply duplicated the live feed from one booster. After several minutes of burns and coasts, the booster returned to Earth almost simultaneously at Landing Zones 1 and 2 (LZ-1/LZ-2) in a spectacle without precedent. It’s best that I let the livestream speak for itself through screen captures – it must be witnessed to fully appreciate how incredible it was.BEHIND THE SCENES:In the background of the livestream was a near-constant stream of cheers from hundreds (probably thousands) of SpaceX’s Hawthorne factory employees, and the sheer excitement conveyed by the livestream’s hosts and SpaceXer audience was quite literally contagious – I know I was certainly grinning uncontrollably for a solid half an hour. While it is not yet clear if the center booster survived its own recovery attempt, SpaceX (or Elon Musk) will certainly provide an update as soon as possible as to its status.
Fingers crossed that it managed to survive its landing aboard the autonomous spaceport drone ship (ASDS) Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY). Nearing the pads, landing legs deploy on both boosters.
(SpaceX)In the meantime, Falcon Heavy’s second stage is set to perform several orbit boosting maneuvers as it circles the Earth, eventually pushing its Roadster and Starman payload beyond Earth orbit and on its way into deep space. While it won’t end up orbiting Mars, the heliocentric (sun) orbit it will be placed in is intended to pass very close to Mars at certain points.
Stay tuned as SpaceX releases additional information on the state of the center booster and the upper stage’s progress towards deep space.Upper stage restart nominal, apogee raised to 7000 km. Will spend 5 hours getting zapped in Van Allen belts & then attempt final burn for Mars.— Elon Musk (@elonmusk).