SpaceX revealed its Falcon Heavy rocket inside the hangar at Launch Complex 39A in Florida on Monday, three days before the 27-engine heavy-lifter is set to launch the classified NROL-97 mission.
The company’s post featured close-up footage of the rocket’s 27 Merlin engine nozzles, arranged in a grid beneath its three first-stage cores. Each core carries nine engines, and the 21-second video pans across the engine section as the rocket sits horizontal in the hangar ahead of rollout to the pad. The footage shows all three cores from below, engine bells facing the camera. SpaceX paired the video with two still photos of the engine section.
SpaceX’s launch manifest lists the flight as NROL-97, a National Reconnaissance Office mission, with liftoff targeted for 11:53 p.m. ET on Thursday, October 1, from the same Florida pad. The manifest lists recovery at a landing zone, with the center core expended.
It would be Falcon Heavy’s second flight in about a month, following the late-August launch that carried NASA’s Roman Space Telescope to orbit from the Space Coast. SpaceX had previewed that Roman mission for an August 30 liftoff, but the telescope departed the following day.
NROL-97 continues SpaceX’s run of classified launches for the reconnaissance office, which included the NROL-48 mission last September. The office books its classified launches under the NROL designation and does not disclose payload details.
The late-night window puts liftoff at 11:53 p.m. ET on Thursday, October 1, making the hangar footage one of the last public looks at the rocket before it rolls out to the pad.
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