Video: Saturday’s SpaceX launch

With eyes on Tropical Storm Eta approaching South Florida, the four astronauts set to launch next Saturday on a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft arrived at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Sunday after flying from their home base in Houston.

A test-firing of a twice-flown Falcon 9 booster Friday at Cape Canaveral paved the way for SpaceX’s next launch, scheduled for Monday night with a heavyweight Boeing-built communications satellite to beam broadband signals to Japan and the Pacific islands.

The launch was the first of about half a dozen missions planned to expand the National Reconnaissance Office’s proliferated architecture satellite constellation. Liftoff from pad 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base happened at 7:53 p.m. PST (10:53 p.m. EST, 0353 UTC).