Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Space
  3. News

Watch the highlights of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket launch on Thursday night

Trevor Mogg
By

On the fifth time of trying, SpaceX launched its triple-booster Falcon Heavy rocket on a mission to deploy an experimental space place for the U.S. Space Force.

Mission USSF-52 lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida shortly after 8 p.m. ET on Thursday, December 28.

Recommended Videos

SpaceX had planned to launch the mission earlier this month, but a series of issues, including poor weather conditions, forced it to call off four separate launch attempts, the most recent one on December 13.

Related

The Elon Musk-led spaceflight company live-streamed the early part of the mission, including the launch and the landing of two of the rocket’s three boosters.

Here’s the launch:

Liftoff! pic.twitter.com/wTmY1h7ogp

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) December 29, 2023

About eight minutes after lift-off, the Falcon Heavy’s two side boosters returned home for an upright landing while the core booster continued to power its payload to orbit.

Falcon Heavy’s side boosters have landed pic.twitter.com/U7AkELZxoI

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) December 29, 2023

Below is the entirety of the 28-minute live stream:

Watch Falcon Heavy launch the USSF-52 mission to orbit https://t.co/zrk4JcZ9Pt

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) December 26, 2023

The USSF’s X-37B space plane is on its seventh trip to space and its first since returning home in November 2022 after spending a record 908 days in orbit, beating its longest stay by 129 days.

The vehicle, which looks similar to NASA’s decommissioned space shuttle, is part of what the USSF describes as “an experimental test program” aimed at developing “reusable spacecraft technologies for America’s future in space, and operating experiments which can be returned to, and examined, on Earth,” though much of the plane’s specific activities are kept secret.

Thursday’s mission marked the ninth flight for SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy since its first launch five years ago. It last flew in October when it deployed the Psyche spacecraft for NASA on a mission to explore a metal asteroid.

Comprising three Falcon 9 boosters, the Falcon Heavy packs 5.5 million pounds of thrust at launch, making it one of the most powerful rockets currently in operation.

SpaceX has also started testing a way more powerful rocket — the Starship — which packs a colossal 17 million pounds of thrust, making it the most powerful rocket ever to fly. However, its first two test flights, conducted in April and November this year, ended in midair explosions.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Trevor Mogg
Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
SpaceX shares awesome rocket imagery from Starship flight
A view of Earth captured from SpaceX's Starship spacecraft.

SpaceX’s third Starship test flight last Thursday was its best yet, far exceeding the first two missions, which took place last year and ended in huge fireballs just a few minutes in.

This time, the Starship -- comprising the first-stage Super Heavy booster and upper-stage Starship spacecraft -- kept on flying, with both parts reaching their destination points before breaking up on descent.

Read more
Watch SpaceX’s Starship burn brightly as it hurtles toward Earth
SpaceX's Starship reentering Earth's atmosphere.

SpaceX surprised a lot of people on Thursday morning when its mighty Starship rocket managed not to blow up seconds after liftoff.

The Starship -- comprising the first-stage Super Heavy booster and upper-stage Starship spacecraft -- enjoyed its most successful test flight yet following two short-lived missions in April and November last year.

Read more
SpaceX’s Starship reaches orbit on third test flight
spacex starship third test flight screenshot 2024 03 14 143605

SpaceX's mighty Starship rocket has made it into space on its third test flight. The rocket, launched at 9:25 a.m. ET today, March 14, took to the skies over the Starbase launch facility in Boca Chica, Texas, and made it to orbit but was lost before the planned splashdown in the India Ocean.

The vehicle consists of the lower section, the Super Heavy booster, and the upper section, the Starship or ship. The two were stacked together ahead of today's flight and achieved separation a few minutes after launch. This tricky maneuver involves cutting off most of the booster's 33 Raptor engines and disengaging clamps connecting the booster to the ship. The ship then fires its own engines to head onward into orbit.

Read more