Congrats to SpaceX for a successful Falcon Heavy test flight. Watching
the two boosters land almost simultaneously was incredible. Right in
the middle of their respective pads.

Unfortunately the core stage didn't land successfully. Reportedly only
the center engine fired due to lack of fuel. The core stage impacted
the ocean at 300 mph 100 feet from the barge, taking out two of the
thrusters and showering the deck with debris. Oh well, it was a test
and had no bearing on the success of the actual flight.

The upper stage did three burns. Number one put the stack in earth
orbit. Number two raised the apogee to 7000 km. Then there was a long
5-6 hour coast phase with live feeds from the cameras pointed at the car
with the earth rotating into and then out of view (YouTube should still
have that video). The waiting period was to qualify the upper stage for
USAF missions that require a fairly long coasting period before a final
burn, so there was a purpose to it.

The third and final burn put the upper stage and Roadster into a solar
orbit with its furthest point well beyond Mars orbit and actually into
the asteroid belt. So, exceeded expectations there, which is amazing.

All in all a very successful test flight.

There are two other Falcon Heavy flights on the schedule for this year.
One is a communications satellite launch and the other is a USAF
satellite launch to further qualify Falcon Heavy for DOD launches (so
the satellite isn't likely to be worth a lot).

Jeff
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