Live coverage: Falcon 9 disintegrates after launch

Engineers worked inside a climate-controlled clean room for two months to ready NOAA’s new space weather observatory for launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

The final major test of the high-power launch abort engines on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft before astronauts climb aboard for a flight to the International Space Station is scheduled for Jan. 18 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, NASA announced Monday.

The Starlink 10-57 mission is also SpaceX’s 80th launch this year carrying Starlink satellites to low Earth obit. It’s targeting liftoff from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center is scheduled for 8:32 a.m. EDT (1232 UTC).