The largest payload rocket to ever go into space in recent years has a gift for us on Halloween, with a Falcon Heavy rocket set to launch that morning for the first time since 2019. Shortly after SpaceX’s massive triple bundle rocket first took off in 2018, it seemed to get lost in the hype surrounding Elon Musk’s larger stainless steel interstellar spacecraft rocket. Now, the Falcon Heavy rocket is poised to put a pair of payloads into orbit for the U.S. space force.
Lately, when we talk about a “big SpaceX rocket,” we’re probably referring to Starship and its accompanying Super Heavy booster, which NASA hopes will send astronauts back to the moon and which Musk dreams of building a society on Mars with.
But the most powerful force in SpaceX’s arsenal that can really go into space remains the Falcon Heavy rocket, whose maiden flight sent a Tesla to the Red Planet in 2018, and two subsequent flights in 2019.
The Falcon Heavy mission, known as USSF 44, is the next launch from Platform 39-A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and is currently scheduled for Oct. 31 at 9:44 a.m. ET (6:44 a.m. PT). The Space Force described it as a classified mission.
“The mission will have two payloads — a larger, unproven satellite and a tiny satellite called TETRA-1,” the military said in a statement on its YouTube channel. “TETRA-1 is the first in a series of GEO prototype satellites launched by the U.S. military and will test system procedures for future satellites.”
The mission was originally planned for 2020, but undisclosed payload issues have delayed it several times.
The Falcon Heavy basically bundles three Falcon 9 boosters together to get triple the thrust. While the configuration isn’t as powerful as NASA’s delayed Artemis 1 SLS system and SpaceX’s own Starship will eventually be, it’s currently the most powerful operational rocket in the world.
