Falcon Heavy fires up its 27 engines for the very first time

Falcon Heavy firing at LC-39A
Photo // SpaceX

Today around 12:30pm EST, SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket ignited its 27 Merlin engines for the very first time as a complete launch vehicle. For the static fire, they followed normal launch procedures with the fueling of the 3 cores and the upper stage and then igniting the engines in a staggered pattern to reduce the torque forces on the octowebs. The rocket fired all the engines for around 7-11 seconds and generated quite a bit of steam as the huge plume grew away from the launch pad. Elon Musk confirmed a good static fire and said that Falcon Heavy would "launch in a week or so".