NASA Administrator speaks about Orion test flight

The first nighttime launch of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket, and the first Falcon Heavy flight for the U.S. military, is set for no earlier than June 24 from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Air Force officials said Friday.

A three-man crew that departed the International Space Station on Oct. 4 flew their Soyuz spaceship into position to take spectacular photos of the orbiting research complex as officials prepare to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the first element’s launch.

The world’s most powerful operational rocket flashed to life at 2:30 a.m. EDT (0630 GMT) Tuesday and climbed into a moonlit summer sky from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the same site where the Apollo 11 astronauts left Earth for their historic moon landing nearly 50 years ago.