Photos: Atlas 5 launches MUOS 5

SpaceX’s first Falcon Heavy rocket is expected to roll out to pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center for the first time next month for a hold-down firing of its 27 Merlin main engines, but the mega-rocket’s inaugural test launch will slip into January, officials confirmed Tuesday.

A Falcon 9 rocket carried 60 more Starlink internet satellites into orbit early Thursday after swapping places with another Starlink mission SpaceX’s fast-paced launch schedule. Liftoff from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station occurred at 1:19 a.m. EST (0619 GMT).

Five European satellites, including a Italian radar surveillance craft and an ESA exoplanet probe, lifted off Wednesday at 0854 GMT (3:54 a.m. EST) from French Guiana aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket. A launch attempt Tuesday was scrubbed due to a software concern with the launch vehicle.