Lifeboat Foundation

The success of SpaceX Falcon Heavy on its first launch was not just luck. Although this will be confirmed in 2019 and 2020 based upon what happens with about five planned Falcon Heavy launches.

Before the Falcon Heavy flight Musk predicted a 50 percent to 70 percent chance of success because of concerns over the difficulty predicting how the vehicle would respond to extreme aerodynamic stresses and vibrations from the clustered engines.

SpaceX has a 96.88% launch success rate (62 out of 64) with the Falcon 9. This launch success is with five major design changes for the Falcon 9 rocket.