World's biggest rocket soars toward Mars

SpaceX's historic test voyage captures global imagination

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida - The world's most powerful rocket, SpaceX's Falcon Heavy, blasted off on Tuesday on its highly anticipated maiden test flight, carrying CEO Elon Musk's cherry red Tesla Roadster toward an orbit near Mars.

Screams and cheers erupted at mission control in Cape Canaveral, Florida, as the massive rocket fired its 27 engines and rumbled into the blue sky over the same NASA launchpad that served as a base for the US missions to the moon four decades ago.

"The mission went as well as one could have hoped," an ecstatic Musk told reporters after the launch, calling it "probably the most exciting thing I have seen literally ever".

"I had this image of a giant explosion on the pad with a wheel bouncing down the road with the Tesla logo landing somewhere," he said. "Fortunately that is not what happened."

Loaded with Musk's red Tesla and a mannequin in a spacesuit, the monster rocket's historic test voyage captured the world's imagination.

SpaceX's webcast showed the Tesla Roadster soaring into space, as David Bowie's Space Oddity played in the background - with the words "DON'T PANIC" visible on the dashboard, in an apparent nod to the sci-fi series the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

'Giant step'

About two minutes into the flight, the two side boosters peeled away from the center core and made their way back toward Earth for an upright landing.

Both rockets landed side by side in unison on launchpads, live video images showed.

"New Olympic sport - Synchronized Landings!" wrote NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik on Twitter.

The third, center booster failed to land on an ocean platform - known as a droneship - as planned.

"It didn't have enough propellant," Musk said, adding that it plunged into the ocean about 100 meters away from its landing point.

Experts said the launch would likely catch the eye of the US space agency NASA, which may consider using the Falcon Heavy as a way to fast-track its plans to reach the moon again for the first time since 1972.

Acting NASA Administrator Robert Lightfoot congratulated SpaceX and called it a "tremendous accomplishment".

US President Donald Trump also offered his congratulations, tweeting: "This achievement, along with @NASA's commercial and international partners, continues to show American ingenuity at its best!"

The Falcon Heavy launched from the same NASA pad that was the base for the Apollo-era moon missions of the 1960s and 1970s.

The 70-meter tall rocket is designed to carry nearly 64 tons into orbit - more than the mass of a fully loaded 737 jetliner.

It can carry twice the payload of United Launch Alliance's Delta IV Heavy, at a far lower cost - about $90 million per launch compared to $350 million for its competitor.

It was initially intended to restore the possibility of sending humans to the moon or Mars, but those plans have shifted and now the Falcon Heavy is being considered mainly as a potential equipment carrier to these deep space destinations, Musk said on Monday.

Instead, another rocket and spaceship combination being developed by SpaceX, nicknamed BFR - alternately known as "Big Falcon Rocket" - would be the vehicle eventually certified for travelers.

AFP - AP - Xinhua

(China Daily 02/08/2018 page12)