Falcon Heavy, the world’s most powerful rocket lifts off on maiden flight

The world’s most powerful rocket the Falcon Heavy, lifts off on an historic maiden flight, from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

US entrepreneur and The SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s mammoth vehicle billed as a risky test flight, designed to deliver a minimum payload to low-earth orbit of 64 tonnes – equivalent of putting five London double decker buses in space.

For this experimental mission, he decided as part of the payload his old cherry-red Tesla sports car and a space suited mannequin strapped in the driver’s seat with the radio set to play David Bowie’s classic hit Space Oddity on a loop. If all phases of the flight are successful, his Tesla and its passenger will be despatched

Into an elliptical orbit around the Sun that reaches out as far as the Planet Mars.