With NASA's Artemis I set to launch on the 14th of this month at the earliest, SpaceX is here to remind us that private industry will be a powerful force in the coming spaceflight renaissance. After a three-year-long hiatus from service brought on by the global health crisis, the prized heavy-lift booster performed as advertised.
Carrying a highly classified scientific payload funded by the United States Space Force, the official launch mass listed by SpaceX for this morning's flight is listed at 3,750 kg (8,270 lbs). Well short of the 63,800 kg (140,700 lb) maximum payload listed for the Falcon Heavy launch platform. At just after 9:40 a.m., the prized Falcon Heavy launch vehicle lifted off from Kennedy Space Center's launch complex 39A in Florida. At the very same pad, the Apollo missions launched over five decades ago.
A flawless early launch stage was welcomed by a successful separation of both liquid-fueled first-stage booster rockets. They managed to land on their assigned recovery vessels without so much as a hiccup. It'd be the 150th and 151st successful recovery of SpaceX launch hardware for subsequent re-use since the company began flying commercial missions in the 2010s. Furthermore, the launch marked the 50th running of a Falcon family rocket in 2022.
With over a dozen more launches due to take off before the year is out, there's a sense that, at least regarding unmanned cargo missions, SpaceX can crank them out in a way no government space agency in the world can manage. Not NASA, Roscosmos, or even the Chinese Space Agency. This once plucky underdog startup company is now the world's premier commercial cargo space launch platform.
At a time when NASA is set to redefine itself with a new round of Lunar exploration, it's important to understand that the "next space race" as we know it is going to be a novel hybrid of private and government brains all working together. Of all of them, SpaceX might be the machine's most vital cog.
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