Photos: Atlas 5 powers away with NROL-61 payload

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket will go from Cape Canaveral to low Earth orbit in less than 10 minutes Wednesday with a Dragon capsule heading for the International Space Station carrying more than 5,600 pounds of supplies and experiments.

Weeks after leaving its factory in New Orleans, the core stage for NASA’s first Space Launch System flight has been raised into a test stand at the Stennis Space Center to begin a series of checkouts culminating in an eight-minute engine-firing later this year.

SpaceX launched the first full-scale Starship and Super Heavy rocket from South Texas at 8:33 a.m. CDT (9:33 a.m. EDT; 1333 UTC Thursday). The nearly 40-story-tall rocket, the largest ever built, lifted off from the Starbase launch complex and flew downrange before veering out of control and exploding about four minutes into the flight.