SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is hoping to launch his company’s Falcon Heavy rocket for the first time in November, and with just a couple of months to go, the company announced that it has completed testing on all all three of the rocket’s first stage cores.
In the tweet, the company says that three first stage cores have completed their testing, and showed off a video of a static test of one of the cores. The company conducted its first static test of the Falcon Heavy’s main core in May.
The Falcon Heavy much larger than the rockets that we’ve seen the company launch thus far: it’s comprised of three Falcon 9 rockets strapped together. That combined thrust will allow SpaceX to launch up to 140,000 pounds of cargo into orbit. Like the Falcon 9, the company hopes to recover the three first stage boosters by landing them on Earth.
The first flight of the Falcon Heavy has been delayed several times: Musk said back in 2011 that the rocket would first fly in 2013, but that has been steadily bumped back to this year. Hopefully, this is a sign that everything is still on track for a November launch.