[3] In April 2011, SpaceX was planning for a first launch of Falcon Heavy from Vandenberg Air Force Base on the West Coast in 2013.

[19] On December 28, 2017, the Falcon Heavy was moved to the launch pad in preparation of a static fire test of all 27 engines, which was expected on January 19, 2018.

[33][34] Also, included was Arch Mission 1.2, which is a crystal disk containing Isaac Asimov's Foundation series of books, on the Tesla Roadster.

[35] There is a copy of Douglas Adams' 1979 novel The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in the glovebox, along with references to the book in the form of a towel and a sign on the dashboard that reads "Don't Panic!".

A plaque bearing the names of the employees who worked on the project is underneath the car, and a message on the vehicle's circuit board reads "Made on Earth by humans".

[39] Falcon Heavy flew in its reusable configuration, allowing for a landing approach of both side boosters and the central core.

The side boosters consisted of two previously flown Falcon 9 first stages, being reused from the CRS-9 mission in July 2016 and the Thaicom 8 launch in May 2016.

For this reason, SpaceX equipped them with larger and sturdier grid fins made of titanium, to help guide the atmospheric descent accurately.

[44] The Falcon Heavy maiden flight was intended to accomplish at least several of the following objectives: The purpose of including the Roadster on the maiden flight was to demonstrate that the Falcon Heavy can launch payloads as far as the orbit of Mars, and it exceeded its projected route by extending its aphelion to near the asteroid belt beyond Mars (with a perihelion at the level of Earth's orbit),[53] but did not test or demonstrate the separation of the second stage and a payload.

The sole objective not completed was the landing of the central core; while its fate was initially ambiguous due to signal loss and heavy smoke, Musk confirmed several hours after the launch that the booster had not survived the recovery attempt.

[54] Because two of the three engines necessary to land were unable to reignite, the booster hit the water at 500 kilometres per hour (300 mph), 100 metres (300 ft) away from the drone ship.

[60] The central core attempted to return to the autonomous spaceport drone ship "Of Course I Still Love You" but failed to light two of the three engines during the landing burn.

[61] Musk later stated that the fix to this problem was "pretty obvious", which led many to believe SpaceX was simply going to add more ignition fluid on future missions.

[65] NASA added the second stage to its database for tracking Solar System objects, and it is not expected to make any close encounters with Earth before 2091.

[66] The test flight was a viral event, attracting extensive news coverage and media attention worldwide,[67][68][69][70][71] and becoming a subject of many Internet memes and parodies.

[72][73][74][75] With over 2.3 million viewers seeing the launch live, the webcast of the Falcon Heavy test flight[76] was at the time the second most watched livestream ever on YouTube.