SpaceX Falcon Heavy Rocket Launches 24 Satellites

One of the top notched aerospace companies, SpaceX, successfully lofted two dozen experimental satellites into orbit by its Falcon Heavy rocket on Tuesday.

The launch took place from Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 2:30 a.m. (06:30 GMT). Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX describes the launch as the most difficult one that SpaceX has attempted.

Dubbed as Space Test Program 2 (STP-2), the mission carried payloads as a part of the U.S. Air Force's Space Test Program. The payloads were specifically for NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), The Planetary Society (a non-profit organization) and universities.

After launching the satellites, the two-sided boosters safely landed on the adjacent side of Air Force landing pads and the rocket’s center booster crashed in the Atlantic Ocean, hundreds of miles off the Florida coast.

Elon Musk Tweeted: “It was a long shot”, in regard to the predicted trouble with landing the center booster on SpaceX’s drone ship in the Atlantic.

According to SpaceX, the new launch is one of the most difficult missions in the company’s history, with four separate upper-stage engine burns and three separate orbits to deploy satellites.

SpaceX next mission is scheduled for a July 21 launch, where it will carry cargo shipment to the International Space Station.