Live coverage: Orion lands in Pacific

SpaceX launch crews rolled out the company’s next Falcon 9 rocket to pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, then lifted the two-stage launcher vertical for a hold-down engine firing Thursday in preparation for launch next week with a South Korean-owned commercial communications satellite.

The mobile service tower is retracted from the Delta 4-Heavy rocket and Orion spacecraft for Exploration Flight Test 1.

View photos from the Delta 4 launch pad on the day before liftoff with NASA’s first space-bound Orion capsule.