orbital launch vehicle
Falcon Heavy is a SpaceX heavy-lift launcher with three booster cores and 27 Merlin engines at liftoff. Its first flight took place on February 6, 2018.
Falcon Heavy is a SpaceX launcher based on Falcon 9 architecture. Its first flight left Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A on February 6, 2018. During that demonstration the side boosters returned to land; the centre core failed to land on the ocean platform. The test payload headed into an orbit around the Sun.
The first stage combines three cores and 27 Merlin 1D engines; the upper stage uses a Merlin Vacuum. SpaceX’s May 2025 technical guide specifies 22,819 kN of liftoff thrust. The vehicle is about 70 m tall and 12.2 m wide overall; each core is approximately 3.66 m in diameter. Published capacities of 63,800 kg to low Earth orbit and 26,700 kg to geostationary transfer orbit are design figures, not guaranteed payloads for every mission.
These values describe a reference configuration. The historical catalogue count is not presented as a current flight total. LV-FALCON-HEAVY is an internal archive key.
Context
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