SpaceXs Falcon Heavy prepares for its first commercial takeoff on Wednesday

The SpaceX Falcon Heavy will launch its first commercial flight tomorrow. The launch of the rocket was postponed from early April for unspecified reasons, and postponed again this week due to weather conditions. But Wednesday has a clear forecast with a launch probability of 80%, so luck will be good as the mission unfolds. The launch window opens at 6:35 am EDT.

Falcon Heavy is a modified version of SpaceX's standard Falcon 9 rocket, consisting essentially of three Falcon 9s attached together, but with a reinforced central core. It was built to serve as a heavyweight to SpaceX, with a five million pound thrust capable of even placing large payloads into orbit and beyond.

The actual payload of tomorrow's Falcon Heavy is the Saudi Arabsat-6A communications satellite, weighing just over 13,000 pounds. The rocket is capable of delivering up to 59,000 pounds in a similar orbit, but that would mean that SpaceX could not recover its boosters for reuse. As far as possible, SpaceX plans to launch at lower speeds to be able to land and possibly reuse Falcon Heavy boosters.

Tomorrow's launch follows a similar plan to Falcon Heavy's first test flight last year. Later, the lateral thrusters landed successfully while the central core missed its target on a barge at sea and was destroyed. Once again, both teams will attempt a landing at Cape Canaveral. The standard Falcon 9 boosters have had many successful landings at this stage and they should be reused for future missions.

In fact, the two secondary thrusters scheduled for tomorrow are already reserved for the next flight of Falcon Heavy, currently scheduled for June. This will be the first Falcon Heavy flight to reuse boosters.

The enhanced center booster will again attempt to land at sea on the drone, where there is more room for error. Because of its reinforcements, this thruster is heavier, and because it is the central core, it flies higher and faster than side boosters, which increases the difficulty of landing. After the 2018 missed landing, Musk revealed that the central core did not have enough ignition fluid to turn on all of its engines used for landing and qualified the solution as "hot". ; "obvious". The real test will take place tomorrow, if Falcon Heavy can not only launch but also land its three boosters.

At the end of the month, on April 25, SpaceX will also launch its usual Falcon 9 rocket capsule and Dragon cargo for its 17th supply mission to the International Space Station.