ASSESSMENTS

Falcon Heavy Rocket Flies Like an Eagle

Feb 6, 2018 | 20:24 GMT

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk delivers a presentation while standing beside scale models of the rockets his company produces. The test by SpaceX featured the largest rocket to have been sent on its maiden voyage since the Saturn V.

(BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/Getty Images)

Highlights

SpaceX's successful first launch of the Falcon Heavy rocket cements the company atop the space industry, giving it the world's most powerful active rocket.
Adding the Falcon Heavy to its arsenal will allow SpaceX to secure more contracts for inserting heavier payloads into higher orbits.
But SpaceX is not done yet, and the Falcon Heavy may only be in service for five to ten years as SpaceX develops a more powerful successor in the future.

SpaceX's process of disrupting of the space industry remains long and prosperous. The private company has successfully launched its Falcon Heavy rocket, sending its "payload" spacecraft, which in this case carries founder Elon Musk's personal midnight cherry-colored Tesla Roadster, on the path to its Earth-Mars orbit around the sun. SpaceX is far and away the leader of the space exploration private sector, having seized on a distinctive, multi-pronged strategy to increase the frequency of its launches while driving costs down. The company has taken advantage of industry competition to negotiate lower costs for its materials, while at the same time utilizing savvy techniques to retool and sometimes completely reuse various rocket designs and models....

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