Hyperdrive
SpaceX Launches Falcon Heavy Rocket From Florida, Its ‘Most Difficult’ Ever
- Side boosters return to land; center core misses drone ship
- Elon Musk tweets: `This is our toughest rocket launch ever'
This article is for subscribers only.
Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp. launched its Falcon Heavy rocket for the U.S. military early Tuesday in a spectacular night time liftoff that Musk described as the company’s toughest yet.
The rocket and payload rumbled aloft at 2:30 a.m. local time from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida after a three-hour delay. SpaceX then recovered the rocket’s two side boosters -- which flew in April as part of the Arabsat-6A mission -- at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The center core failed to land on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.