Photos: Atlas 5 rocket aims for International Space Station

SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket Friday at 5:39 p.m. EDT (2139 GMT). The commercial booster is hauling up the Thaicom 8 television broadcasting satellite from Cape Canaveral. The rocket’s first stage successfully landed on SpaceX’s recovery platform in the Atlantic Ocean.

Orbital Sciences Corp. is set to launch its next commercial resupply flight to the International Space Station on Monday after inspections revealed a rocket tracking station in Bermuda weathered a direct hit from Hurricane Gonzalo last week.

NASA fired up four hydrogen-fueled main engines on the core stage of the first Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket Thursday in on a test stand in Mississippi, a redo of a crucial hot fire test that was cut short in January by technical issues. The engines burned more than eight minutes in an apparently successful test.