What is a payload fairing?
Also called: nose cone
The payload fairing is the hollow nose cone that protects a rocket’s cargo from the air during launch. Falcon 9’s is 13.1 m tall and splits in half at about T+2:56.
Air pushes hard on anything travelling at launch speeds, so the cargo rides inside a smooth shell where nothing can touch it.
Once the rocket is above almost all the atmosphere the shell is no longer needed — and it is heavy — so it splits into two halves and falls away.
SpaceX recovers the halves from the ocean and reuses them.
See it happen
Meet a RocketEvery part, namedSource: Falcon 9 Block 5 — specifications