Falcon Heavy made its first flight in February 2018 carrying Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster.
The test flight launched from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A on 6 February 2018. Falcon Heavy used three modified Falcon 9 first-stage cores, giving it 27 Merlin engines at liftoff. The center core and two side boosters were designed for recovery, and the side boosters successfully landed.
The Roadster served as a mass simulator instead of a conventional commercial payload. It was placed into a heliocentric orbit that reaches beyond Earth’s orbit, with a mannequin nicknamed Starman seated in the driver’s seat.
Falcon Heavy was designed to lift much more mass than a standard Falcon 9. It became one of the world’s most powerful operational launch vehicles, although SpaceX has increasingly concentrated public attention on the larger Starship system.