Falcon Heavy is composed of three Falcon 9 nine-engine cores whose 27 Merlin engines together generate more than 5 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, equal to approximately eighteen 747 aircraft. Falcon Heavy has the highest payload capacity of any currently operational launch vehicle. Falcon Heavy is designed to carry 53,000 kg to orbit, nearly twice that of its largest competitor, the Boeing Company’s Delta IV Heavy.
Falcon Heavy launches
The first Falcon Heavy test flight occurred on February 6, 2018. The rocket carried a Tesla Roadster belonging to SpaceX founder Elon Musk, with a dummy dubbed "Starman" in the driver's seat, as a dummy payload. The second Falcon Heavy launch occurred on April 11, 2019 and all three booster rockets successfully returned to Earth. The third Falcon Heavy launch successfully occurred on June 25, 2019. Since then, Falcon Heavy has been certified for the National Security Space Launch (NSSL) programme.
Falcon Heavy was designed to be able to carry humans into space beyond low Earth orbit, although as of February 2018, SpaceX has confirmed that they will not transport people on Falcon Heavy, nor pursue the human-rating certification process to transport Nasa astronauts. Both Falcon Heavy and Falcon 9 will eventually be superseded by the in-development Starship launch system.
The Falcon Heavy has the capability to carry 63,800 kg payload to low earth orbit or LEO. The launch vehicle is designed to carry a payload of 26,700 kg of payload to the geosynchronous transfer orbit or GTO and is also capable of lifting a payload of 16,800 kg for a trip to Mars.
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