Blastoff! SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket launches nearly 7-ton satellite, nails landings in Florida [8:46]

YouTube ^ | April 29, 2026 | VideoFromSpace

[SunkenCiv]

A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket launched the ViaSat-3 F3 communications satellite from NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida on Wednesday (April 29), lifting off at 10:13 a.m. EDT (1413 GMT). The 6.6-ton (6 metric tons) satellite is headed to geostationary orbit (GEO) which lies 22,236 miles (35,786 kilometers) above Earth, according to Space.com. 

Blastoff! SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket launches 
nearly 7-ton satellite, nails landings in Florida | 8:46 
VideoFromSpace | 2.12M subscribers | 1,583 views | April 29, 2026

---

TOPICS: Business/Economy; Science
KEYWORDS: falcon9; falconheavy; spacex; viasat3f3

[SunkenCiv]

Transcript? "Ten, nine, eight..."

[SunkenCiv]

[2023] From Starlink launch group 6-1 - a new camera on the captive tensioning rods gives a complete view of the upper stage stack on orbit.

SpaceX Shows Off Amazing View of Starlink Satellites [short] | 0:59
Scott Manley | 1.85M subscribers | 2,790,501 views | February 28, 2023

[SunkenCiv]

[snip] A minute-and-a-half later, the core stage, making its first and only flight, fell away and the rocket’s upper stage took over. Unlike the side boosters, which had propellant reserves for landing, the core stage burned all of its fuel as planned and was then jettisoned to crash into the Atlantic Ocean. [/snip]

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/spacex-launches-viasat-internet-satellite-falcon-heavy-rocket/

(the side boosters landed successfully on separate landing zones)

[BenLurkin]

[BenLurkin]

[ByteMercenary]

One has to admit the Musk’s folks are the gold standard in the space game these days.

[RainMan]

I live in Daytona. Wanted to watch this one go up today but I was in a meeting with a customer. I can watch them from my front yard. Love the evening launches that go on a slightly north trajectory. You can see just how large those fuel plumes are compared to the rocket itself when it is just a little bit dark. When they fly the boosters back to Cape Canaveral (instead of the drone ship), we even get a sonic boom.

[SunkenCiv]

Definitely.

[SunkenCiv]

I used to love those when I was a kid. It’s weird that those got banned.

[rktman]

Worked shuttle for 36 years. 24 at KSC. Never got old watching any of the launches.

[citizen]

Oh, shoot, I missed this. Glad it worked.

[citizen]

This payload/launch profile must have been near the limit of the Heavy’s range, if they had to expend all the core stage fuel.

[SunkenCiv]

It probably had to do with both the mass of the payload and the radius of the orbit. Landing the core booster has proven to be difficult, so using it in expendible mode doesn’t look bad. Low launch cadence, previous use was 18 mos ago I think. If there were more use, they’d probably figure it out. The payload capacity the FH exceeds that of the New Glenn (even when the NG eventually manages to successfully deliver a payload), and has double that of the now-discontinued Delta 4 Heavy. The D4H launches were pretty cool, IMHO.

I’ve been puzzled that the FH has been used to launch the next-gen jumbo Starlink sats. The speculation is that the fairing size is too limited, but it’s absurd to think that an appropriate sized fairing couldn’t be whipped up. It probably has to do with the emphasis on Starship development, which is going to be used for Starlink deployment via the “pez dispenser”, and has taken longer than expected.

[SunkenCiv]

Whoops! “puzzled that the FH has NOT been used”

[usconservative]

Never gets old. Go SpaceX Go!!

[citizen]

This Heavy core stage is basically a Falcon-9, right? But perhaps the Heavy assembly was engineered before the landings of a standard 9 became routine and it was not configured for a barge landing. Like you say, losing one once in a while is not prohibitive.

What’s the latest on the Starship booster and ship? Ground testings indicate good-to-go?...and if the launch is successful, they try for orbit?

[SunkenCiv]

It’s taller, and the first try it tipped over into the ocean after landing on the droneship. Charging the extra cash for the expendible mode is probably the easiest course of action.

Years back, one of the Musk Derangement Syndrome takes on the FH core was that it wasn’t going to support larger payloads because the structure of the regular F9 couldn’t carry that much. Apparently Elon and his SpaceX engineers weren’t going to be clever enough to figure that out. 😁

[citizen]

I am fortunate; no one has CDS ‘cause no one pays attention to me.

[SunkenCiv]

Gotta take the good with the bad. 😊

[SunkenCiv]

The first-stage booster, making its 13th flight, will land on the drone ship 'Of Course I Still Love You' nearly 8.5 minutes into the fligh 

Live: SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches 24 Starlink Satellites 
from California | 45:35 
| 464K subscribers | 28,024 views | April 29, 2026