Photos: Falcon takes flight

SpaceX’s next Falcon 9 rocket ignited its Merlin main engines for several seconds Thursday at Kennedy Space Center’s pad 39A ahead of a planned launch next week.

When SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket finally takes off for the first time, a debut now scheduled this fall, there’s a good chance the commercial heavy-lifter will falter short of reaching orbit, company founder and chief designer Elon Musk said last week.

The Starlink 10-26 mission will add another 28 satellites into the constellation of more than 8,000 on orbit. SpaceX executed liftoff from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 5:01 a.m. EDT (0901 UTC).