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SpaceX is committed to revolutionizing the space race to accelerate the exploration of the solar system. To achieve this ambition, the company owned by Elon Musk is testing a reusable high capacity launch rocket called Falcon Heavy. And the launch of last week's SpaceX Falcon Heavy – only his second trip into space – was immortalized by a series of snapshots underlying the tremendous power of the spacecraft.
Remote cameras placed on Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center show SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket projected into the air on Thursday night.
The Falcon Heavy was propelled into the heavens with over 5 million pounds of thrust.
The triple core rocket, powered by 27 Merlin main engines, was sent over the Atlantic Ocean with the Arabsat 6A communications satellite on board.
Last week's launch was only the second for the Falcon Heavy and the SpaceX launcher's first flight for a paying client.
Two and a half minutes after take-off, the Falcon Heavy's two side-thrusters broke off and returned to Cape Canaveral, Florida, where they managed to land simultaneously in the SpaceX'x landing zones at approximately 15 km distance. south of the launch site.
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The final leg then landed on the SpaceX drone in the Atlantic Ocean more than 600 km (about 1,000 km), while the second leg continued to orbit with Arabsat 6A.
The photos published by SpaceX show the fiery hell released by the launch of the Falcon Heavy and the landings of the two sides of the rocket a few minutes later.
Jim Reuter, acting deputy administrator of NASA, said, "We are delighted with the successful launch and landing of the first stage of the Falcon Heavy of yesterday.
"We have important technologies ready to fly, and this success helps us to go down that path."
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The NASA space agency plans to launch several experiments in space simultaneously, with the aim of improving the design and performance of future rockets.
The missions will also be launched from the Kennedy Space Center as part of the US Air Force's STP-2 (Space Test Program-2) mission.
NASA has already confirmed that the US Air Force and SpaceX will prepare for launch in the coming months.
The Falcon Heavy is expected to soon launch NASA's green propellant infusion mission in order to test an alternative to the traditional chemical propulsion used in rockets.
The mission will test a new fuel / oxidant mixture called hydroxylammonium nitrate, considered safer to use and more environmentally friendly than hydrazine, a popular but toxic rocket engine fuel. .
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Another NASA experiment involves two relatively inexpensive small cubes-sats.
These robots, which will be part of the E-TBEx (Enhanced Tandem Beacon Experiment) experiment, will measure how disturbances in the Earth's atmosphere interfere with radio signals and GPS.
NASA hopes that the study will improve the prediction of such distortions in order to secure communication technologies in the future.
NASA's third mission concerns the atomic clock in deep space, an extremely accurate watch intended to improve navigation, as well as the Space Environment Testbeds device, which examines the impact of near-sunlight of the Earth on the spacecraft material.
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