One Falcon Heavy rocket launched, three Falcon cores landed [Updated]

Enlarge / The Falcon Heavy rocket, at sunset along the Florida coast. (credit: Trevor Mahlmann for Ars Technica)

7pm ET Update: Well, that was exhilarating. SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket launched at the top of its window on Thursday evening from Florida, and soared into space under clear skies. First, the two side boosters separated. And then the center core detached from the second stage, which carried its satellite payload on toward geostationary orbit.

Then, the fun began. In something of a space ballet, the two side boosters reentered Earth's atmosphere, and then made controlled burns to land within meters of one another at sites along the Florida coast. A few minutes later the center core, burning its engines hard, landed on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.

Original post: On Wednesday evening, SpaceX ended its first attempt to fly the Falcon Heavy rocket and its Arabsat-6A payload in the middle of a two-hour launch window. The upper-level wind shear was unacceptable, and with a poor forecast, it just didn't make sense to load kerosene and oxygen on the rocket.

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