After years of payload preparation, SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket launched one of the company’s most-challenging missions to date. Space Test Program 2 (STP-2), a U.S. Air Force contracted flight with 24 government and civilian testbed payloads, launch within at 4-hour launch window from LC-39A at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida.
The launch window opened at 23:30 EDT on Monday, 24 June (03:30 UTC on Tuesday 25 June), although the T-0 moved to 02:30 EDT – 3 hours into the window. After liftoff, the Falcon Heavy’s second stage spent roughly 3.5 hours performing 20 deployments of 24 satellites into various orbits and various orbital inclinations.