Falcon Heavy Preparing for Next Monday

Sunday evening, SpaceX Tweeted the following picture with a minimal explanation (much larger version of this picture can be downloaded from that link). 

That, of course, is the "business end" of a Falcon Heavy, in the integration facility connected to pad 39A.  Essentially three Falcon 9s - 27 Merlin 1D engines - running at the same time.  Teslarati goes into some details on what has to happen next, updated through this morning when they published.

Thanks to the nature of Falcon Heavy and Pad 39A’s infrastructure, what happens next is more or less guaranteed. During normal Falcon 9 operations, 39A’s integration hangar is large enough for two or three unrelated Falcon boosters to remain while the (Transporter / Erector) T/E rolls inside to pick up a full Falcon 9. More importantly, Falcon 9’s booster and upper stage can technically be integrated off to the side and craned onto the T/E when ready. But with Falcon Heavy, which has a first stage akin to three Falcon 9 boosters sitting side by side, there isn’t enough room inside the hangar to integrate the rocket with the T/E inside.

For Falcon Heavy, the T/E can thus only roll back into the hangar once the rocket’s three boosters and upper stage have been fully assembled and are suspended in mid-air. SpaceX’s October 23rd photo shows that three of the four cranes required for that lift appear to already be in position, further confirming that T/E rollback is imminent. Once the T/E rolls back to the hangar and Falcon Heavy is attached, the rocket will eventually be transported to the pad and brought vertical for wet dress rehearsal (WDR) and static fire testing.

Update: SpaceX began rolling the T/E to Pad 39A’s integration hangar around 1 am EDT, October 24th.

At this point, launch sites (such as this and this) are reporting the launch to be No Earlier Than 9:44 AM on Monday, October 31.  Teslarati's Eric Ralph sounds like he's reluctant to believe that's really going to happen, and adds this:

The US Space Force’s USSF-44 payload – a mysterious pair of satellites that are more than two years behind schedule – will almost certainly not be installed on Falcon Heavy during prelaunch testing, so the rocket will need to roll back to the hangar at least one more time after testing to have its payload fairing attached.

I can only add that "No Earlier Than" means just that.  The soonest someone thought they could be ready to launch was that 9:44 AM on Monday launch.  Launching by next Friday, November 4th, or Thanksgiving (to be absurd) are both NET next Monday. 

This is the vehicle from the last Falcon Heavy mission in June of 2019 being transferred from the horizontal hanger where it's assembled up the ramps to the launch pad.  SpaceX photo.

There's another thing noteworthy about this picture.  This was posted right here on September 10, 2021.  Thirteen months ago.  The story at that time concerned preparations for the USSF-44 mission, NET October 9th.  Today, that mission that looks to be NET October 31, 2022.