SpaceX successfully launches the red Tesla to the Red Planet (Video)

Lifting off from the same launchpad that sent the crew of Apollo 11 to the moon, the rocket sent up a mountain-sized plume of smoke and a rattling roar across Florida’s Space Coast, where thousands gathered to watch. The mission represented the first test of the massive rocket, powered by 27 engines in three first-stage boosters that are essentially strapped together.

The maiden flight also marked the first time a privately financed venture ever attempted to launch a rocket so powerful that it was capable of hoisting a payload out of Earth's orbit. As a promotional stunt, SpaceX founder Elon Musk loaded the Falcon Heavy with his own cherry-red Tesla Roadster carrying a spacesuit-clad mannequin named "Starman" in the driver's seat. Musk said he planned to send the convertible, built by another one of his companies, into an orbit around the sun that would take it near Mars.

A cheering crowd watched the rocket light up the afternoon sky, capping off months of rapidly growing excitement for the launch vehicle's demonstration flight.

The 230-foot-tall, 27-engine rocket lifted off on its first mission during a two-and-a-half hour window at Cape Canaveral launch pad 39A and headed east over the Atlantic Ocean. Winds delayed the launch until near the end of the window.

"The weather looks good, rocket's looking good," SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said during a pre-launch news conference Monday. "I'm looking forward to it."

Shortly after liftoff, Falcon Heavy's two previously flown side cores detached, then descended toward Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Landing Zone 1 and 2. 

The core stage, meanwhile, burned slightly longer before separating from the upper stage, performed a flip maneuver and landed on SpaceX's Of Course I Still Love You drone ship.

Musk's personal 2008 Tesla Roadster, an all-electric sports car that helped sustain his energy company in its formative years, is encapsulated in the rocket's protective fairing for Tuesday's flight, but with a new addition: A "Starman" mannequin in the driver's seat, donning the spacesuit that astronauts will wear on SpaceX flights to the International Space Station.

After a coast phase, the Roadster will separate from the upper stage and target a heliocentric orbit, meaning it will ultimately orbit the sun and enter into close proximity to Mars at certain points along its path.