Video: Saturday’s SpaceX launch

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is set for liftoff from Cape Canaveral on Tuesday, heading due east over the Atlantic Ocean to deliver the Merah Putih communications satellite into orbit around 32 minutes later.

The Jason 3 oceanography satellite, a joint project between U.S. and European weather agencies, is closed up inside the nose cone of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket awaiting launch from California’s Central Coast on Sunday.

SpaceX’s upgraded Dragon capsules will not return astronauts to Earth for powered landings as originally envisioned, company boss Elon Musk said Wednesday, a design change that raises questions about the space transport firm’s plans to send commercial landers to the surface of Mars.