Photos: Atlas 5 rocket soars from West Coast

Flight controllers at NASA’s mission control center in Houston have completed the robotic swap out of a failed power distribution unit outside the International Space Station, clearing a hurdle ahead of Friday’s predawn launch from Cape Canaveral of a SpaceX supply ship.

After a six-week delay for undisclosed reasons, SpaceX raised a Falcon 9 vertical on its launch pad Thursday at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for another try early Friday to send into orbit the company’s next batch of Starlink Internet relay stations and a pair of commercial BlackSky Earth-imaging microsatellites.

SpaceX test-fired a Falcon 9 rocket Tuesday at Cape Canaveral for the company’s next launch, which is set for takeoff Monday at around 9:56 a.m. EST (1456 GMT). The rocket will launch with the next batch of SpaceX’s Starlink broadband satellites, the company’s first launch since early August. There is an 80 percent chance of favorable weather for launch Monday.