— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 24, 2018 It’s also enough thrust to launch payloads to the Moon or Mars, so the Falcon Heavy is the key component in SpaceX’s bigger ambitions. Musk hopes to use the Falcon Heavy to send tourists around the Moon, and to send supplies to Mars for a manned mission. For the test flight, however, SpaceX is going much crazier. Test flights do require a payload to make the math and aerodynamics work, but there’s also a good chance that the test flight might end in an explosion, so you don’t want to strap a billion-dollar communications satellite to the front. Normally, that means sending a concrete mass into orbit, but Musk decided instead to send his original Tesla Roadster into an orbit around the Sun. The other mission parameters for the Falcon Heavy’s first flight are equally ambitious: All three Falcon 9 cores are expected to detatch from each other and land back on the launch pad or on a drone ship at sea. Tech. Entertainment. Science. Your inbox. Sign up for the most interesting tech & entertainment news out there. Email: