Live coverage: Atlas 5 blasts off from California

SpaceX conducted the first hold-down firing of an upgraded version of the Falcon 9 rocket Friday at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, in preparation for launch next week with Bangladesh’s first communications satellite.

Three rockets under the existing Block Buy between the Pentagon and United Launch Alliance have been assigned configurations and payloads.

A day after aborting a rendezvous to resolve a navigation glitch, SpaceX’s Dragon cargo craft made a smooth final approach to the International Space Station on Thursday, floating in range of the research lab’s robot arm for capture at 5:44 a.m. EST (1044 GMT).