The SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket had a very successful maiden voyage today - launching a dummy payload (The Tesla Roadster) into Earth orbit, en route to a final orbit near Mars.
Two of the boosters landed successfully at Kennedy Space Center, the third one missed the drone ship landing.
The roadster and its “Starman” dummy driver are in Earth Orbit, flying through the Van Allen radiation belts for about 5 hours and you can watch a live video below from 3 cameras mounted on the Roadster. You may want to play some David Bowie songs while you watch it.
Truly, an astounding view and a stroke of marketing genius.
Here are some images and the video of the main event today —
Synchronized landing! Practice makes perfect.
A view from the roadster driver’s seat — while orbiting Earth for a few hours in the Van Allen Belt region -
Successful third burn of the over-achieving rocket — will take it past Mars to the Asteroid Belt — happy trails.
Here is the launch video on YouTube -
Hopefully everyone understands by now why the payload is a red Tesla roadster and not something more valuable and useful to humanity.
See diaries www.dailykos.com/… and www.dailykos.com/… for details and discussion on today’s historic mission.