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SpaceX plans first ever Falcon Heavy night launch for Monday

MERRITT ISLAND, Fla. — SpaceX has scheduled the window for their first ever night launch of a Falcon Heavy rocket to open at 11:30 p.m. on Monday, June 24.

In another first, the SpaceX rocket will deploy 24 satellites on behalf of the Department of Defense.

Dale Ketcham with Space Florida emphasizes the public hype behind this event:

“This is gonna be a big one because it’s a night launch.

It’s gonna get everyone’s attention. . .it’s unfortunate they couldn’t pull it off on a Saturday night, that would’ve been a zoo.”

Nearly 240 feet tall, the Falcon Heavy has been the largest and most powerful rocket to launch from Kennedy Space Center since the Apollo space program’s Saturn V.*

The company successfully test fired the rocket on Wednesday night.

In addition to DoD cargo, the Falcon will also deploy testing equipment for NASA.

A unit called the deep space atomic clock will be tested as a “space GPS.”

Atomic clocks are highly sophisticated, the most accurate timekeeping devices on Earth; NASA claims that this one will only lose one second every nine million years.

It wouldn’t be out of the ordinary if this launch is delayed, however if SpaceX gets their green light on Monday night, use our streaming services or tune in to 96.5 FM to hear the roaring fire and sonic booms live as they happen.

*Note: while the Saturn  V is considered the granddaddy of them all standing at 363 feet, we received word from listener Jim Bolton that there was another rocket taller than the Falcon Heavy. The Ares I-X launched on  October 28, 2008 and stood 327 feet high.

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