Photos: Atlas 5 rocket aims for International Space Station

SpaceX ran a Falcon 9 rocket through a customary preflight checkout Tuesday, filling it with super-cold propellants and firing its nine Merlin first stage engines in preparation for liftoff Friday on a resupply run to the International Space Station.

A Vega rocket fired into space at 8:52 p.m. EST Monday (0152 GMT Tuesday) from the Guiana Space Center in South America, but the mission deviated from its planned trajectory. The rocket was boosting a Spanish Earth observation satellite and a French research payload into orbit.

SpaceX brought another Falcon 9 booster into Port Canaveral on Wednesday, a little more than two days after landing the rocket on a platform in the Atlantic Ocean as the company enters an unusually quiescent period of launch activity in Florida — at least by recent standards.