Polytechnic University Students Observe SpaceX Falcon Heavy Launch

As a follow up to the STEM workshop on “Hidden Figures”-movie analysis by Professor Lori Huertas/Professor Nestor Canales, students at Polytechnic University Orlando were able to observe a part of history not only on TV but outside, since our campus is only 38 miles from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Professors alongside students witnessed the SpaceX Falcon Heavy Rocket Launch Today.

The Falcon Heavy will be able to lift more payload than any other American rocket since the Saturn 5, the gargantuan rocket that NASA used for the Apollo moon landings. (The space shuttle also had more liftoff thrust, but less payload capacity, because most of the thrust went into lifting the orbiter.) It is also the first time that a commercial company has developed such a large rocket without any government financing.

The Falcon Heavy will allow SpaceX to bid on missions for the Air Force for some spy satellites that are too heavy for the Falcon 9, and it could be useful to NASA for launching large space probes. Some think it could even serve as a replacement for the Space Launch System, a gigantic rocket NASA is currently developing for carrying astronauts on deep space missions, to the moon and eventually Mars.