Photos: Delta 4 lights up the sky for night owl launch

An engine failure that cut short the first test flight of Virgin Orbit’s air-dropped LauncherOne rocket in May was caused by a faulty propellant feed line, the company’s CEO said this week.

In this time-lapse video, a Falcon Heavy rocket is lifted into position atop launch pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in readiness for a pre-flight test firing of its 27 Merlin main engines.

Follow the key events of the Falcon 9 rocket’s ascent to orbit with 60 satellites for SpaceX’s Starlink broadband network.