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(Saturday, November 22nd, 2008) On Saturday night, at about 10:30pm CST, we successfully conducted a full mission duration test firing of the Falcon 9 rocket first stage, lasting 178 seconds (nearly three minutes)! At full power, the rocket generated 855,000 pounds of thrust at sea level. In vacuum, the thrust increases to approximately one million pounds or four times the maximum thrust of a 747 aircraft. The nine Merlin engines consumed over half a million pounds of liquid oxygen and rocket grade kerosene during the test (video here).The Space Fellowship
