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Agence France-Presse

SpaceX carried out its first commercial launch on Thursday with its Falcon Heavy rocket sending a Saudi telecoms satellite into orbit.
The bright white rocket rose with a roar and spewed thick grey smoke on the ground as it made its way up into clear blue skies over Cape Canaveral, Florida, trailing a long plume of orange fire.
About 34 minutes after lift-off, the shiny silver satellite was successfully deployed. Staff in the control room cheered and clapped.
Earlier, boisterous spectators chanted along with the launch announcer who counted down the final 10 seconds before lift-off.




The Falcon Heavy rocket exerts 2.3 million kilos (5.1 million pounds) of thrust – that of more than a dozen jetliners, SpaceX said.
The rocket carried a Saudi Arabian satellite operated by Arabsat, a year after sending SpaceX founder Elon Musk’s slick red Tesla roadster into orbit as a test.
Israeli spacecraft ‘Beresheet’ crashes into moon as engine fails minutes from touchdown
The Falcon Heavy was supposed to lift off from the Kennedy Space Centre on Wednesday but was delayed because of strong winds in the upper atmosphere.
The job was to place the six-ton Arabsat-6A satellite into geostationary orbit about 36,000km (22,500 miles) above Earth. It went off without a hitch.
The satellite is designed to provide television, internet, telephone, and secure communications to customers in the Middle East.

Less than 10 minutes into the flight, the rocket’s three boosters detached from the Falcon Heavy on schedule.
Two of them, as planned, landed safely back on pads at Cape Canaveral, to a roar of approval from the crowd. It was quite a spectacle, with the boosters coming down gently, and vertically, fiery end first.
A third landed, also as planned, on a barge out in the Atlantic.

“Three for three boosters today,” a SpaceX webcast commentator said.
SpaceX has two operational rockets: the Falcon 9, which with 21 launches in 2018 dominates the US market, and the Falcon Heavy, which as its name suggests is designed to lift much heavier payloads into more distant orbits.
Elon Musk expects SpaceX to launch Mars spaceship in 2019
It consists of the equivalent of three Falcon 9 rockets combined, tripling its thrust.
In Falcon Heavy’s first launch, in February 2018, a dummy dubbed Starman was placed behind the wheel of Musk’s roadster, which is currently orbiting the Sun somewhere between Earth and Mars.
Since then, the US military and private clients have signed contracts for Falcon Heavy launches, and Nasa has raised the possibility it may use the rocket for its planned missions to the Moon.


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SpaceX

SpaceX carries out first commercial launch: a successful Saudi satellite deployment

Eight minutes after lift-off, SpaceX landed two of the first-stage boosters side by side at the Kennedy Space Centre in Cape Canaveral, Florida on April 11, 2019. Photo: AP

Spectators watch from Jetty Park as booster rocket engines approach landing pads, after a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, carrying the Arabsat 6A communications satellite, lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral , Florida, U.S., April 11, 2019. REUTERS/Joe Rimkus Jr. TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

In this view from the roof of the Vehicle Assembly Building, the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket lifts off from Launch Complex 39-A at Kennedy Space Center, Fla., on Thursday, April 11, 2019. The Falcon Heavy was ferrying the Arabsat-6A satellite, which was later succesfully deployed. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel/TNS)

A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, carrying the Arabsat 6A communications satellite, lifts off from the Kennedy Space Centre in Cape Canaveral, Florida on April 11, 2019. Photo: Reuters

SpaceX ‘crew Dragon’ capsule docks with International Space Station for first time

REFILE - ADDING BYLINE NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine speaks with NASA commercial crew astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken before launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 carrying the Crew Dragon spacecraft, on an uncrewed test flight to the Internation Space Station at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S. March 1, 2019. REUTERS/Joe Skipper

Astronauts on the International Space Station prepare to open the hatch to the SpaceX Dragon capsule on March 3, 2019. Photo: EPA/Nasa TV

‘Rebuilding the internet in space’: US approves SpaceX plan for global broadband satellite services

SpaceX founder Elon Musk. The space exploration firm has been approved for its plan to build a satellite broadband service. Photo: Reuters

SpaceX launch: Israel in historic bid to become fourth nation to land on moon with world’s first privately-funded lunar mission

The lunar lander of the Chang'e-4 mission is seen in a photo taken by the rover. Photo: Xinhua/CNSA

File - In this Monday, Dec. 17, 2018 file photo, technicians stand next to the SpaceIL lunar module, an unmanned spacecraft, is on display in a special "clean room" where the space craft is being developed, during a press tour of their facility near Tel Aviv, Israel. SpaceIL and state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries told a news conference that the landing craft will take off from Florida, to its weekslong voyage to the moon this week. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit, File)

A rendering of SpaceIL's lunar lander, Beresheet. It's scheduled to launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on February 21, 2019, from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. (SpaceIL/TNS)

(FILES) In this file photo taken on July 20, 1969, astronaut Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr., lunar module pilot of the first lunar landing mission, poses for a photograph beside the deployed US flag during Apollo 11 Extravehicular Activity (EVA) on the lunar surface area called the Sea of Tranquility. The Lunar Module (LM) is on the left, and the footprints of the astronauts are clearly visible in the soil of the Moon. Astronaut Neil A. Armstrong, commander, took this picture with a 70mm Hasselblad lunar surface camera. NASA is celebrating its 60th anniversary. The National Aeronautics and Space Act, creating NASA, was signed into law by US President Dwight D. Eisenhower on July 29, 1958. / AFP PHOTO / NASA / HO / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - MANDATORY CREDIT "AFP PHOTO / NASA" - NO MARKETING NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS - DISTRIBUTED AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS

The unmanned robotic explorer was due for lift-off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at atop a Falcon 9 rocket launched by the California-based entrepreneur Elon Musk’s SpaceX company. File photo: AP

Meet Yusaku Maezawa, the Japanese billionaire who will be the first man to go to moon on Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket

Yusaku Maezawa, CEO of online fashion retailer Zozo, bought all the seats on board and hopes to blast-off accompanied by group of artists – possibly in 2023

Yusaku Maezawa, the Japanese billionaire fashion-brand founder and art collector, who has paid an undisclosed sum to be on the first SpaceX rocket trip to the moon. Photo: EPA

Elon Musk’s SpaceX launches Planet-Hunter satellite into orbit  

SpaceX has the goal to make mankind multiplanetary, and TESS looks for new planets

Elon Musk,Tesla's tireless salesman and visionary, in Guadalajara, Mexico, on Sept. 27, 2016. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Susana Gonzalez.

epa06678773 A handout photo made available by NASA shows NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) seperating from the SpaceX Falcon 9 booster after launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, USA, 18 April 2018. NASA on 18 April 2018 launched a satellite in a search mission for habitable planets outside our solar system. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, USA, delivered the search tool to space. The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite will search for planets outside of our solar system over the course of two years, NASA said. EPA-EFE/NASA HANDOUT HANDOUT EDITORIAL USE ONLY/NO SALES

epa06678770 A handout photo made available by NASA shows an artist's impression of NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), planet Earth (L) and the Moon (R), issued 19 April 2018. NASA on 18 April 2018 launched a satellite in a search mission for habitable planets. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, USA, delivered the search tool to space. The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite will search for planets outside of our solar system over the course of two years, NASA said. EPA-EFE/NASA HANDOUT HANDOUT EDITORIAL USE ONLY/NO SALES

The launch of Nasa’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, US, on April 18. Nasa launched a satellite in a search mission for habitable planets outside our solar system. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, US, delivered the search tool to space. Photo: EPA

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Rocket carried a telecoms probe operated by Arabsat and for the first time, three boosters returned to Earth safely


Rocket carried a telecoms probe operated by Arabsat and for the first time, three boosters returned to Earth safely.


Space

Saudi Arabia