Live coverage: SpaceX Falcon 9 launches

The twin 177-foot-tall solid-fueled boosters for the first flight of NASA’s Space Launch System have been stacked inside the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center to await arrival of the rocket’s cryogenic core stage, which is set for a second engine test on a firing stand in Mississippi later this month.

In addition to carrying an Air Force electric propulsion thruster test, a materials research investigation sponsored by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center will be flying aboard the X-37B miniature spaceplane later this month.

Nearly a decade after Orbcomm raised the money to pay for a second-generation satellite fleet to drastically expand the company’s reach, the $230 million program is finally primed for completion after Monday’s launch of a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral.