— NASA picks SpaceX Falcon Heavy to launch 1st Gateway station pieces to the moon The long gap since the last launch in June 2019 was mostly due to delays with the delivery of payloads on the rocket's manifest, but in the meantime, SpaceX has been moving forward several times a month with launches of its much lighter Falcon 9 workhorse. It's already achieved more than 50 of those in 2022, which is a record. Falcon Heavy itself is built on first-stage boosters, all modified versions of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, that can make vertical touchdowns after liftoff. (The core stage usually drops upon a SpaceX drone ship in the ocean, although Tuesday's launch saw the stage ditch in the ocean due to needing to use most of its fuel to boost the satellite to geostationary orbit.) Elizabeth Howell is the co-author of "Why Am I Taller?" (ECW Press, 2022; with Canadian astronaut Dave Williams), a book about space medicine. Follow her on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook. Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: community@space.com.