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Relive SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy launch of Psyche asteroid mission with these amazing photos

Space.com October 13, 2023 2 min read

Relive SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy launch of Psyche asteroid mission with these amazing photos_65299f58549ce.jpeg

Relive SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy launch of Psyche asteroid mission with these amazing photos (Image Credit: Space.com)

SpaceX’s first Falcon Heavy mission for NASA did not disappoint.

The Falcon Heavy — the second-most powerful rocket currently in operation, after NASA’s Space Launch System — launched the agency’s Psyche asteroid mission from Kennedy Space Center in Florida this morning (Oct. 13).

It was the eighth liftoff overall for the Heavy and its fourth already in 2023. But the sight of the triple-core rocket climbing into the sky — and coming back down to Earth — was still a dazzling one, as the photos below make clear.

Related: NASA’s Psyche asteroid probe on track for October launch after 1-year delay

a triple booster rocket blasts off from a launch tower with a blue hazy sky behind — Psyche lifted off atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Oct. 13, 2023. (Image credit: Josh Dinner)

a white rocket rises into a cloudy blue sky with a white spacex building in the foreground. — Falcon Heavy climbs into the sky on its eighth-ever mission. (Image credit: Josh Dinner/Space.com)

a white rocket launches into a cloudy sky. — The 27 Merlin engines of Falcon Heavy’s three first-stage boosters together generate about 5 million pounds of thrust at liftoff. (Image credit: SpaceX)

a white booster separates from its rocket high above earth, with the planet in the background. — The view from a camera aboard the Falcon Heavy showing one of its first-stage boosters separating during the launch of the Psyche asteroid mission. (Image credit: SpaceX)

two rocket boosters come in for a landing against a cloudy sky. — The Falcon Heavy’s two side boosters come down for a landing at Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station about 8.5 minutes after launch on Oct. 13, 2023. (Image credit: SpaceX)

two rocket boosters come in for a landing against a cloudy sky. — It was the fourth liftoff and landing for these two side boosters, and they have more action ahead of them: They’re scheduled to launch NASA’s Europa Clipper mission in 2024, for example. (The central booster that launched Psyche was new, and it will not fly again; it fell into the sea by design after its launch duties were done.) (Image credit: SpaceX)

a rocket nozzle glows orange with earth and the blackness of space in the background. — The single Merlin engine of the Falcon Heavy’s upper stage fires high above Earth, carrying Psyche farther into space. (Image credit: SpaceX)

a rectangular piece of a rocket's upper stage in orbit, with earth in the background. — View from the Falcon Heavy’s upper stage before the deployment of Psyche. (Image credit: SpaceX)

a cube-shaped spacecraft deploys from a rocket's upper stage with the blackness of space in the background. — Psyche deploys from the upper stage of its SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket on Oct. 13, 2023. (Image credit: SpaceX)

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Psyche now has a long road ahead of it. The spacecraft is scheduled to arrive at its namesake, a 173-mile-wide (280 kilometers) metallic object in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, in 2029.

The probe will then study the asteroid Psyche up close for about two years. Scientists think the space rock may be the exposed core of an ancient planetary building block, so the mission’s observations could shed considerable light on our solar system’s early days, the formation of planets and the characteristics of Earth’s core.