page_title: Falcon Heavy
section_title: Capabilities
hierarchical_section_title: Falcon Heavy / Capabilities
caption_attribution_description: English: A 113-second exposure of the Falcon Heavy launch on June 25, 2019 - taken from 180 miles north of Cape Canaveral.
context_page_description: The Falcon Heavy is a partially reusable heavy-lift launch vehicle designed and manufactured by SpaceX. It is derived from the Falcon 9 vehicle and consists of a strengthened Falcon 9 first stage as the center core with two additional Falcon 9-like first stages as strap-on boosters. The Falcon Heavy has the highest payload capacity of any currently operational launch vehicle, the third-highest capacity of any rocket ever to reach orbit, trailing the Saturn V and Energia, and the third-highest capacity of any orbital-class rocket ever launched successfully.
  SpaceX conducted the Falcon Heavy's maiden launch on February 6, 2018, at 3:45 p.m. EST. The rocket carried a Tesla Roadster belonging to SpaceX founder Elon Musk, carrying a dummy dubbed "Starman", as a dummy payload. The second Falcon Heavy launch occurred on April 11, 2019 and all three booster rockets successfully returned to earth. The third Falcon Heavy launch successfully occurred on June 25, 2019. Since then, the Falcon Heavy has been certified for the National Security Space Launch program.
context_section_description: The partially reusable Falcon Heavy falls into the heavy-lift range of launch systems, capable of lifting 20 to 50 metric tons into low Earth orbit (LEO), under the classification system used by a NASA human spaceflight review panel. A fully expendable Falcon Heavy is in the super heavy-lift category with a maximum payload of 64 tons to low earth orbit.
  The initial concept (Falcon 9-S9 2005) envisioned payloads of 24,750 kg (54,560 lb) to LEO, but by April 2011 this was projected to be up to 53,000 kg (117,000 lb) with GTO payloads up to 12,000 kg (26,000 lb). Later reports in 2011 projected higher payloads beyond LEO, including 19,000 kilograms (42,000 lb) to geostationary transfer orbit, 16,000 kg (35,000 lb) to translunar trajectory, and 14,000 kg (31,000 lb) on a trans-Martian orbit to Mars.
  By late 2013, SpaceX raised the projected GTO payload for Falcon Heavy to up to 21,200 kg (46,700 lb).
  In April 2017, the projected LEO payload for Falcon Heavy was raised from 54,400 kg (119,900 lb) to 63,800 kg (140,700 lb). The maximum payload is achieved when the rocket flies a fully expendable launch profile, not recovering any of the three first-stage boosters. With just the core booster expended, and two side-boosters recovered, Musk estimates the payload penalty to be around 10%, which would still yield over 57 metric tons of lift capability to LEO. Returning all three boosters to the launch site rather than landing them on drone ships would yield about 30 metric tons of payload to LEO.
caption: Long exposure of a night launch, June 25, 2019
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