Sunday's Falcon Heavy launch produced breathtaking photos throughout

 By Eric Berger

January 16, 2023 6:14 PM

On Sunday, shortly after dusk, a Falcon Heavy rocket blasted off from Florida.

                      On Sunday evening out of Florida, the Falcon Heavy rocket launched for the seventh time in the previous five years. However, since this was the triple-core booster's maiden launch in the dark, the uncommon evening light revealed some amazing new details about the rocket's takeoff and landing.

The opening image above shows reddish tones reflecting off the white cores and upper stage, demonstrating this post-sunset illumination. The rocket's ability to ascend to a level where it can see the Sun is what gives it its hue.

With its 27 Merlin engines blazing simultaneously, the Falcon Heavy, now the second-most powerful rocket in the world behind NASA's Space Launch System, always puts on a spectacular display. Until SpaceX's Starship rocket launches later this year, it maintains the record for the rocket that used the most first-stage engines to reach space.

On Sunday, at 5:56 p.m. ET (22:56 UTC), the rocket was launched.

The US Space Force's USSF-67 launch on Sunday sent two payloads into geostationary orbit. This was the Space Force's second Falcon Heavy launch, with a third one planned for later this spring.

This engine shot demonstrates the rocket's three distinct cores, each of which is a customised version of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket and has its own distinct plume.

Before the boosters separate, which occurs around two minutes and thirty seconds into the launch, the rocket can be seen ascending into the sky in this image. The side-mounted boosters will then split from the rocket's central core after this.

After another 30 seconds of burning, the middle core's kerosene and liquid oxygen propellant run out. The side-mounted boosters must stop moving ahead in this period and turn around in order to return to landing zones a few kilometres from the launch site.

The USSF-67 payload is seen blazing toward orbit in the central core of this picture. The side boosters are firing in the meantime to start the return to Earth. Interactions with the centre core plume during a Falcon Heavy make this manoeuvring challenging. Naturally, the second stage of a Falcon 9 launch would only be powered by a single Merlin vacuum engine at this time.

The side boosters fire their cold-gas thrusters in a nearly continuous sequence after slowing down for their return to Earth. In addition to surviving reentry through Earth's atmosphere, these nitrogen-powered thrusters assist in keeping the rockets pointed in the right direction as they approach the planet.

In the waning light on Sunday evening, these firings likewise appeared beautiful.

To get a distinctive perspective of Sunday's launch, our photographer, Trevor Mahlmann, set up shop close to the Cape Canaveral Lighthouse. Here is a streak that depicts the side-mounted boosters' reentry and landing.

Then, since it was beautiful, he took a picture of the noctilucent clouds that had formed following Sunday night's Falcon Heavy launch. When water-ice crystals condense on microscopic pieces of debris in the upper sky, they generate some of the tallest clouds that are capable of forming in the atmosphere.

By generating water vapour in the high atmosphere, rocket launches can influence the formation of these clouds.

Finally, Mahlmann combined all of his views from the lighthouse into this solitary time-lapse of the booster launch and return.

Don't lose hope if you were unable to watch the Falcon Heavy rocket launch. The Space Force's USSF-52 mission, a commercial mission for EchoStar in May, a commercial mission for ViaSat in March, and NASA's Psyche asteroid mission in October are among the upcoming missions this year. As is always the case with launches, those dates might change. But it's still unclear if any of them will be at dawn or dusk.

Under the terms of a Creative Commons licence, this article has been taken from arstechnica. Go here to read the original article.