SpaceX Successfully Launches Falcon Heavy Rocket With Two Flight-Proven Booster Cores

SpaceX succeeded in launching its third mission with the Falcon Heavy high-capacity rocket it first launched successfully last year. 'The rocket's STP-2 mission took off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida towards the end of a four-hour launch window that opened at 11:30 PM EDT on Monday, with liftoff taking place at 2:30 AM EDT on Tuesday after the launch was pushed back so that the ground crew could complete 'additional ground system checkouts,'' reports TechCrunch. From the report: The launch was a first for SpaceX in a number of different ways -- it's the first night launch for Falcon Heavy, which treated observers to a unique light show. It's also the first time SpaceX has launched the Falcon Heavy with flight-prove boosters, and it used two: The boosters on either side of Falcon Heavy's central rocket were used on the Arabsat-6A mission that launched on April 11. Finally, it's the first time that Falcon Heavy has carried a payload for crucial SpaceX customers -- including the U.S. Air Force, the Department of Defense, NASA and more. To accomplish its mission, it'll continue carrying out a series of maneuvers over the next several hours to deploy its payload of 24 different spacecraft into their three separate target orbits. UPDATE - UTC 7:19: The center core narrowly missed landing on the 'I Still Love You' drone ship by a few feet. We're still waiting to hear the status of deployments for the 24 satellites onboard.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.