SpaceX launching {powerful} Falcon Heavy rocket for 1st time in 18 months on April 27: Watch it dwell

SpaceX’s brawny Falcon Heavy rocket is about to fly for the primary time in a 12 months and a half, and you may watch the motion dwell.

A Falcon Heavy topped with the massive ViaSat-3 F3 communications satellite tv for pc will launch from NASA’s Kennedy Area Middle in Florida on Monday (April 27), throughout an 85-minute window that opens at 10:21 a.m. EDT (1421 GMT).

You may watch the liftoff dwell right here at Area.com, courtesy of SpaceX, or instantly by way of the corporate. Protection will start about quarter-hour earlier than launch.

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Falcon Heavy employs three modified, strapped-together first phases of SpaceX’s workhorse Falcon 9 rocket. The central booster hosts an higher stage, which is built-in with the payload.

Collectively, these three boosters generate about 5.1 million kilos of thrust at liftoff, making Falcon Heavy the second-most-powerful launcher in operation immediately. The chief is NASA’s Area Launch System (SLS) moon rocket, which generates 8.8 million kilos. (SpaceX’s Starship creates a whopping 16.7 million kilos of thrust at liftoff, however it’s nonetheless in growth.)

Falcon Heavy debuted in February 2018 with a check flight that launched SpaceX founder Elon Musk’s cherry-red Tesla Roadster into orbit across the solar. The rocket has since flown 10 extra missions, each one among them profitable.

Nevertheless it’s been some time since Falcon Heavy breathed fireplace: It final launched in October 2024, sending NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft towards the Jupiter system.

ViaSat-3 F3 is not going almost that far afield. The 6.6-ton (6 metric tons) satellite tv for pc is headed to geostationary orbit (GEO) which lies 22,236 miles (35,786 kilometers) above Earth. At that altitude, orbital velocity matches our planet’s rotational pace, permitting satellites to “hover” over the identical patch of actual property constantly.

ViaSat-3 F3’s patch is a giant one: The satellite tv for pc will present high-throughput broadband service to clients all through the Asia-Pacific area.

As its identify suggests, ViaSat-3 F3 would be the third ViaSat-3 satellite tv for pc to succeed in orbit. ViaSat-3 F1 did so atop a Falcon Heavy in April 2023, and ViaSat-3 F2 adopted swimsuit in November 2025 aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V.

What to learn subsequent

ViaSat-3 F1 at the moment offers service to clients aboard airliners, and ViaSat-3 F2 will serve folks within the Americas when it comes on-line subsequent month. ViaSat-3 F3 will spherical out the ViaSat-3 mini-constellation.

“This launch marks a pivotal second in our journey to deliver quick, safe and dependable excessive capability, extremely versatile broadband to our industrial, protection and client clients,” Dave Abrahamian, ViaSat’s vp of house methods, mentioned in an organization assertion earlier this month.

The Falcon Heavy’s two facet boosters will come again for a touchdown at Florida’s Cape Canaveral Area Pressure Station about eight minutes after launch on Monday, if all goes to plan. The central booster will not be recovered; it’s going to fall into the Atlantic Ocean when its work is completed.

The Falcon Heavy’s higher stage, in the meantime, will carry ViaSat-3 F3 to geosynchronous switch orbit, deploying it there about 5 hours after launch.