Live coverage: SpaceX launches its fifth Falcon 9 flight of the year

A new communications spacecraft for Hispasat, a Spanish communications satellite operator, will get a boost from a Russian Proton rocket Monday toward an orbital position more than 22,000 miles above Earth.

SpaceX test-fired a Falcon 9 rocket Monday night at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, clearing the way for a launch Thursday with Qatar’s Es’hail 2 communications satellite, the first daytime liftoff from Florida’s Space Coast in more than six months.

Set to fly in its most powerful configuration with five solid rocket boosters, a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket rolled out to Cape Canaveral’s Complex 41 launch pad Tuesday in preparation for a planned blastoff two days later with a U.S. military communications satellite.