Photos: Falcon takes flight

Technicians planned to attach two Boeing-built communications satellites to a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket Monday, a day after launch controllers fueled the rocket and fired its nine Merlin first stage engines in a key preflight test.

SpaceX debuted a more reusable, higher-thrust model of the Falcon 9 rocket Friday, hauling Bangladesh’s first communications satellite into orbit from Florida’s Space Coast.

The four members of the SpaceX Crew-11 flight were previously set to fly on different missions before they ended up as a quartet on the Dragon Endeavour spacecraft. Liftoff of the Falcon 9 rocket from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center is scheduled for no earlier than Friday, Aug. 1, at 11:43 a.m. EDT (1543 UTC).