Live coverage: Falcon 9 disintegrates after launch

SpaceX conducted the first hold-down firing of an upgraded version of the Falcon 9 rocket Friday at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, in preparation for launch next week with Bangladesh’s first communications satellite.

The mission comes on the heels of SpaceX having to stand down from launching the Polaris Dawn astronaut mission due to weather concerns. The lost booster, tail number B1062, was aiming for a record 23rd landing on the droneship ‘A Shortfall of Gravitas’ when it collapsed and exploded.

The Starlink 17-8 mission was just the seventh new booster for the company out of more than 100 launches this year. SpaceX achieved liftoff from pad 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base at 8:51 p.m. PDT (11:51 p.m. EDT / 0351 UTC).