We’re going to close our live coverage of the historic Falcon Heavy launch with a summary of the afternoon’s events.
- Through a waterfall of cascading fire and smoke, SpaceX successfully launched its first Falcon Heavy, the most powerful rocket in operation anywhere in the world, and second only in strength to the Apollo-era leviathans that took crews to the moon.
- The company then successfully separated its three rocket boosters, and landed two in a ballet of controlled burns. They landed onto parallel launchpads near where they took off in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
- The third booster was unaccounted for by the company. It was meant to land on a droneship in the Atlantic ocean, but the company did not explain its fate after a camera feed cut out from the vibrations of the rocket.
- Billionaire founder Elon Musk successfully launched one of his Tesla Roadsters on a course toward Mars. He revealed surreal live video feeds of the car cruising around the planet, complete with a “Don’t Panic” dashboard message, a dummy astronaut in the driver’s seat, and David Bowie on the radio.