text: SpaceX's Falcon Heavy launch might mean moon missions for Elon Musk – Embedding Top Content From Around The Country
  SpaceX and NASA re-configured the system and have now flown it six times in the top phase of the Falcon 9 rocket and double in the reusable booster phase. This Falcon Heavy flight may feature the COPVS in both phases of center booster, which might give the data it needs to eventually certify the design for human spaceflight to NASA.
  It may be feasible, but only as long as the Falcon Heavy proceeds to demonstrate its abilities with this launch and four others scheduled in the coming years.
  A successful test run of the assignment in March showed the firm 's Dragon spacecraft was capable of successfully flying into the ISS, docking using the orbital habitat, then returning to earth to splashdown in the sea. That means that the business might actually launch a flight later this year, pending a few other loose ends.
  One requirement is that the company fly seven times with an approved method of pressurized gas canisters in its own rockets. Those canisters, called composite overwrap pressure vessels or COPVs, were connected to a 2016 flame that destroyed a SpaceX rocket and satellite.
  The vehicle is effectively three of SpaceX's reusable Falcon 9 boosters lashed together. It debuted with a Feb. 2018 flight that delivered a Tesla roadster into orbit around the sun.
  You can see the launch and attempt to reunite the boosters at 6:36 pm EDT on SpaceX's dwell flow:
  The Falcon Heavy rocket is the strongest operational rocket in the world, designed to fly the biggest satellites to the greatest orbits over the earth. The communications satellite has been flown in this launch, Arabsat-6A, weighs about six metric tons (6.6 tons).
  Although this is simply the second flight of the rocket, a sleek mission could bring Elon Musk closer to his dreams of shooting humanity out into the solar system. NASA has established a new target of landing people on the moon in 2024 that will require SpaceX's aid to realize.
  His firm also has sold a flight around the moon to Western billionaire Yusaku Maezawa on the as-yet-unbuilt Starship space vehicle.
  Using it for the moon mission will come with its own challenges, such as figuring out how to mate the spacecraft, called Orion, with the Falcon Heavy, then to re-fuel it in orbit.
  Arabsat-6A will be launched to an orbit roughly 36,000 km (22,369 kilometers ) above the ground, where it will remain over Africa, the Middle East and Europe since it circles the earth.
  The Falcon Heavy earned international plaudits as it launched, but got a distinctly cool reception from the US area institution, which has spent $17 billion to a Boeing-built heavy rocket known as the Space Launch System (SLS) that confronts protracted waits.
  SpaceX warned residents of the Florida coast there are likely to be three big sonic booms if the 3 boosters return to earth after delivering the satellite.
  The SpaceX rocket anticipated to vault a Saudi communications satellite into orbit on April 10 is also auditioning to explore space with NASA.
  However, in March, NASA administrator James Bridenstine increased the chance of maintaining a planned lunar evaluation of an uncrewed deep-space automobile on schedule for 2020 by launching it on a commercially-available rocket like the Falcon Heavy rather than waiting for SLS.
  TIL Christopher Lee was the only member of the L.O.T.R. cast who personally met Tolkien. Tolkien gave him the blessing to play Gandalf but Lee's ability to play villains later convinced Peter Jackson to offer him the role of Saruman.