SpaceX’s customer for this mission, dubbed STP-2, is the US Department of Defense, a key customer that commercial companies such as SpaceX rely on for lucrative launch contracts. That is to say, SpaceX wanted this mission to go off without a hitch — and the primary mission, to safely deliver the rocket’s payload into space, appeared to go as planned.
The Falcon Heavy was slated to travel to three different drop off points in orbit. Officials began confirming successful deployments of some of the satellites destined for lower orbits shortly after launch.
This mission was coordinated by the Defense Department, but the satellites that flew atop Falcon Heavy came from a range of agencies and organizations, including NASA, military research laboratories, and universities.
Plenty of satellites have solar panels that convert the sun’s energy to electricity and power on-board computers. But a solar sail is different. It aims to use actual light particles, called photons, as an endless source of fuel.
If successful, photons from the sun should, slowly but surely, push the spacecraft deeper into space -— without using thrusters and heavy fuels that other satellites rely on.
The concept dates back centuries. Carl Sagan, the famed science communicator who co-founded The Planetary Society before his death in 1996, once showed off a light sail model on “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson” in 1970s.
“Forty years ago, my professor Carl Sagan shared his dream of using solar sail spacecraft to explore the cosmos,” Nye said in a statement. “The Planetary Society is realizing the dream.”
The rocket
The rocket is notable for more than just its power: Its three first-stage boosters are reusable and designed to guide themselves back to Earth after launch so that they can be refurbished and used again on future launches. After the first-stage cores detach, the second stage of the rocket fires up its own engine and continues on into space to finish off the mission.
SpaceX says reusing hardware saves the company big bucks, driving down the price of its rockets. With a $90 million price tag, the Falcon Heavy is far cheaper than similar rockets built by SpaceX’s competitors.
After launch Tuesday morning, the Falcon Heavy’s two side boosters executed flawless synchronized landings on ground pads in Florida. But the center booster, which was supposed to land on a seafaring platform called a drone ship, missed its mark and splashed into the ocean.
Although the company routinely lands boosters after flights of its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket, SpaceX has yet to recover all three boosters after a Falcon Heavy launch.