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Originally Posted by Flash
Watched the whole launch it was just awesome!
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Heartily agreed--it and Beresheet's lunar landing attempt were well worth giving up last night's sleep for! (I had numerous computer errands to catch up on). Also:
"Everyday Astronaut" videoed it from five miles away, and (despite a few unwanted drop-outs), he got some incredible ascent and outboard booster return footage (the link is below)! He also reported that the three booster cores account for 90% of the Falcon Heavy vehicle's dry mass, so that is significant savings for SpaceX! Below is a quick account of his coverage:
“Everyday Astronaut” recorded today’s Falcon Heavy launch from five miles away (see:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpX16SePpVA ), and he also discussed an unusual aspect of this flight. Arabsat 6A could actually have been injected into a GTO by a Falcon 9, but it flew aboard a Falcon Heavy instead for contract history (it was originally signed up for a FH ride), schedule (it had been waiting for its launch for a *long* time), and logistical & time-saving reasons (modifying it to ride on a Falcon 9 would have cost more money and time, and utilizing the Falcon Heavy’s ability to put it into a Supersynchronous Transfer Orbit will get Arabsat 6A to its assigned Clarke Belt slot sooner than could be done using a Falcon 9), and:
All three of this Falcon Heavy’s standard Block 5 booster cores are now flight-proven, and--at least in the case of the outboard ones, if not all three--they will be used for the next Falcon Heavy flight, as the SpaceX hosts mentioned. (If the Russian IRDT inflatable Fregat upper stage [and test satellite] conical heat shield/parachute-substitute descent decelerator devices were adapted to bring down the second stage intact from orbit—and if the fairing halves were also recovered—the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy would become fully-reusable launch vehicles, something that NASA has only dreamed about—although nearly always in winged form—since the late 1960s through the early 1970s [although Douglas Aircraft’s Philip Bono always envisioned RLVs as wingless, rocket-braked vehicles].)