SpaceX dusts off Falcon Heavy for first flight in 18 months
- Reference: 1777298227
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2026/04/27/spacex_readies_the_first_falcon/
- Source link:
The [1]mission will loft the ViaSat-3 F3 communications satellite into geostationary orbit. Liftoff is scheduled during an 85-minute window opening at 1421 UTC today, with a backup opportunity on April 28 at 1417 UTC.
The last Falcon Heavy mission launched the Europa Clipper in October 2024, and the entire Falcon Heavy system was expended. This time, SpaceX plans to recover both side boosters, landing them simultaneously at Landing Zones 2 and 40 at Cape Canaveral.
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Both side boosters are veterans: one has flown on 18 Starlink missions, the other on the GOES-U Falcon Heavy mission in June 2024.
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Today's assignment marks the start of a high-activity period for SpaceX's heavy lifter. If all goes to plan, a Falcon Heavy will send Astrobotic's Griffin-1 uncrewed lander to the Moon in July, and the [5]Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope could launch as soon as September .
The ViaSat-3 F3 satellite - part of the ViaSat-3 broadband constellation - will add more than 1 Tbps of capacity to the company's network over the Asia-Pacific region. It weighs in at six metric tons, so requires a heavy lifter.
[6]NASA Inspector fears new spacesuits won't be ready for Moon landing
[7]Blue Origin nails the landing, but puts the payload satellite in the wrong orbit
[8]White House seeks deep NASA cuts as Artemis II breaks spaceflight record
[9]Starlink sprays debris into orbit following another satellite 'anomaly'
ViaSat originally planned to use an Ariane rocket for this task and agreed to [10]modify its contract to use the Ariane 64 variant of the Ariane 6 launcher in 2019. However, delays meant that ViaSat eventually looked elsewhere, and here we are.
The Falcon Heavy looks like three Falcon 9 rockets strapped together - though as SpaceX boss Elon Musk acknowledged, it's a bit more complicated than that. SpaceX's Starship can haul larger payloads, but remains in development; the third iteration of the rocket is about to begin testing, with orbital flight still uncertain.
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Until Starship matures, Falcon Heavy remains SpaceX's heaviest operational workhorse and its most photogenic, with the twin booster landings a spectacle in their own right. ®
Updated at 15.25 UTC on April 27, 2026, to add:
SpaceX has confirmed today's launched was scrubbed due to "unfavourable weather."
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[1] https://www.spacex.com/launches/viasat3f3
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ae-IIgBGbh4UptlhzaiPpgAAA0s&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ae-IIgBGbh4UptlhzaiPpgAAA0s&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
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[5] https://www.theregister.com/2026/04/23/nancy_grace_roman_space_telescope/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2026/04/21/nasa_oig_spacesuit_report/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2026/04/20/blue_origin_nails_the_landing/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2026/04/07/nasa_budget/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/31/starlink_sprays_debris_into_orbit/
[10] https://investors.viasat.com/news-releases/news-release-details/viasat-arianespace-modify-initial-viasat-3-satellite-launch
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ae-IIgBGbh4UptlhzaiPpgAAA0s&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: delayed till 28/04 due to weather
Better to be on the ground wishing you were in the air, than in the air wishing you were on the ground.
Re: delayed till 28/04 due to weather
That could be a strapline for Ryanair.
Note that only the first FH flight had a nearly simultaneous landing - it was intended they land separated so they wouldn’t interfere with each other but a miscalculation resulted in them landing together. Presumably these will land further separated in time.
Launch has also been delayed until tomorrow morning.
Falcon Heavy = 63,8t max to LEO (fully expended)
> Until Starship matures [...]
That "until" is doing some heavy lifting here.
Starship is said to be planned to launch 200t to LEO, with multiple high risks documented in the pre-IPO documentation.
Demonstrated so far have been ~20t to sub-orbital speed/altitude.
So far Falcon Heavy is the only heavy-duty launch vehicle in SpaceX's arsenal.
The jury is still out if Starship will ever be able to compete even with Falcon Heavy on capability or cost.
Re: Falcon Heavy = 63,8t max to LEO (fully expended)
"The jury is still out if Starship will ever be able to compete even with Falcon Heavy on capability or cost."
It's really not.
Re: Falcon Heavy = 63,8t max to LEO (fully expended)
> It's really not.
Then you seem to know more than the SpaceX Documentation.
Please enlighten me: Which financial and orbital capabilities of the Spaceship concept have already been verified and/or demonstrated?
Re: Falcon Heavy = 63,8t max to LEO (fully expended)
Only in the minds of those who don't understand the development approach taken.
It's not a "we've launched this, so with just a few tweaks it'll be operational"
It's more of a "let's try this and gather as much data as we can, then see what needs more attention"
So people see a sub-orbital launch and sneer that it can't even reach orbit yet. But it could easily reach orbit, but they don't want it there until they have other aspects production-ready - once things are in orbit it's harder to bring them down if something goes wrong. Yes there have been a couple of mishaps but really not of the scale that the general public perceive.
As a specific example, when testing the heat shield and control surfaces they had burn-through (shown live on camera, which is incredible in itself) - cue responses of "See, it burned all the way through. They're rubbish" when actually it was a deliberate approach to work out how much damage it could sustain while retaining control, alongside testing the limits of the heatshield material itself. They could've easily chosen a different entry profile to reduce the heat, but got far more data by testing to destruction.
delayed till 28/04 due to weather
delayed till 28/04 ~ 3:17pm UK time due to weather today