Falcon Heavy Roars to Orbit Thursday Night from KSC

SpaceX and the US Space Force launched Falcon Heavy carrying the USSF-52 mission from Kennedy Space Center at 8:07pm Eastern Standard Time under partly-cloudy skies and huge crowds gathered in Titusville and Cape Canaveral. After separating from the core first stage of the rocket, the two side boosters arced across the sky and returned to Cape Canaveral Space Force Station safely some eight and a half minutes later.

USSF-52’s payload was the Boeing X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle for the United States Space Force, which will conduct various tests, including NASA’s Seeds-2 experiment. That will investigate the effects of radiation on plant seeds during spaceflight. X-37B is a winged spacecraft vaguely resembling the Space, Shuttle, and it embarked on its seventh mission in orbit, or OTV-7 in USSF parlance. Its stated mission is to test its capacities to change its orbital regime and materials test for the Space Force.

According to SpaceX, “this [was] the fifth launch and landing of these Falcon Heavy side boosters, which previously supported USSF-44, USSF-67, Hughes JUPTER 3, and NASA’s Psyche mission. Following booster separation, Falcon Heavy’s two side boosters [landed] on SpaceX’s Landing Zones 1 and 2 (LZ-1 and LZ-2) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.” After landing, the boosters announced their return with a pair loud sonic booms that echoed across the Space Coast.

Roughly estimated, well over ten thousand people lined parks along US-1 in Titusville, on and around the Max Brewer Bridge, as well as on Merritt Island in the Port Canaveral area. Unconfirmed reports trickled out of Kennedy Space Center Visitors center that they were at capacity several hours prior to the scheduled launch time and were forced to turn people away. After the launch, traffic was bumper-to-bumper on the Beachline and also on Washington Avenue in Titusville, along with the major arteries leading to I-95 from the east side of town.

Bob Jenkins, a visitor from Kansas told Talk of Titusville he had decided to forego attending the Pop-Tarts Bowl in Orlando that was being played at the same time as the launch. “This may be my only chance to ever see one of these,” he said. “I’ve been listening to the game on XM and have met a lot of nice people here.” When asked if he plans to return to the Space Coast, Jenkins said, “this was so much fun, I think I will make a vacation of it next year.”