SpaceX successfully launches Falcon Heavy, the world's most powerful rocket, for paying customers

SpaceX successfully launched its new improved Falcon Heavy rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center on Thursday, more than a year after launching a "Red Roadster" on its first test flight.

The updated Falcon Heavy is now the world's most powerful rocket, with 27 engines taking off. It was launched Thursday night in the sky with Arabsat-6A, a Saudi satellite built by Lockheed Martin and operated by Saudi Arabia.

Eight minutes after take-off, SpaceX landed side-by-side at Cape Canaveral with two of the first-stage thrusters, just like when the rocket was launched last year. The main reminder landed two minutes later on an ocean platform hundreds of kilometers off the coast – the only part of the first mission missing.

Eight minutes after takeoff, SpaceX lands two of the first stage boosters side by side at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida on Thursday, April 11, 2019.
(AP)

SpaceX chief Elon Musk warned in advance that things could go wrong, given the improved version of the rocket with unproven modifications. But everything went extremely well and the satellite was found in good orbit.

SpaceX employees at the company's headquarters in Southern California praised each milestone of the launch, particularly the three touchdowns.

"The Falcons have landed," Musk said in a tweet containing pictures of the three boosters.

NASA quickly sent its congratulations tweeting: "From our iconic launch platform at @NASAKennedy, we will continue to support the growing commercial space economy."

Musk put his own Tesla convertible on the demo last year. The red Roadster – with a dummy, nicknamed Starman, probably still driving – remains in a solar orbit extending just after March.

SpaceX plans to launch its next Falcon Heavy later this year for a US Air Force mission. The boosters of this flight can be recycled from it.

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NASA's director Jim Bridenstine suggested last month that a Falcon Heavy – and a big rocket from another company – could be used to equip the space agency's Orion capsule around the moon, minus one crew, in 2020.

Bridenstine said that everything was on the table of space while NASA was striving to achieve the White House 's goal of landing astronauts on the Moon' s ###. ### ### ### ################################################################################# 39, here 2024.

Associated Press contributed to this report.