Live coverage: Falcon 9 disintegrates after launch

The mission will send the ViaSat-3 F3 satellite to a geosynchronous transfer orbit. Liftoff from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center is scheduled for 10:13 a.m. EDT (1413 UTC), at the opening of an 85-minute window.

After assessing any damage to the spaceport caused by Hurricane Dorian as it narrowly missed Florida’s east coast, NASA says the Kennedy Space Center will reopen for normal operations Friday. Teams rolled the Space Launch System’s mobile launch platform from pad 39B back into the cavernous Vehicle Assembly Building last week for safekeeping during the storm.

SpaceX has won an $80 million contract to launch a NASA environmental research satellite aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral in late 2022 to collect data on ocean ecosystems and clouds, a mission that the Trump administration wished to cancel.