tech2 News StaffJun 23, 2019 15:59:58 IST
Having made a lot of waves last year, Elon Musk’s SpaceX is about to launch its mammoth Falcon Heavy rocket for the third time on 24 June 2019. This time around, the rocket will lift off in the night as opposed to previously being launched in the day.
SpaceX launched the Falcon 9 rocket carrying PAZ and Tintin A & B (demo satellites for Starlink) mission on Thursday, 22 February, 2018.
The main objective of the launch, which happens at 24 June 11.30 pm ET (10.00 am IST next day) is to put into space 24 satellites which have been assembled Department of Defense, NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and several universities. The Falcon Heavy will have to reignite four times over the course of six hours to get the satellites in the poisitons they need to be.
As such Elon Musk has said that this will be the most complicated and most difficult launch ever. The cargo also contains an atomic clock, which happens to be no bigger than a toaster but is no ordinary clock. As per The Verge, this clock may take up to 10 million years to get off by one second.
The mission, which has been dubbed STP-2 for the Department of Defense’s Space Test Program-2, will a satellite on board is said to be carrying 152 metal capsules packed with human ashes. This has been arranged by a company called as Celestis which charges upwards of $5,000 for putting 1 gram of ash into outer space.
Like before SpaceX will be attempting to land both its boosters and the centre core back to the ground. It was successful last time around and there is no reason to suspect why it wouldn’t this time.
