EchoStar 19 launch seen from KSC Press Site

A Russian satellite launched Tuesday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, riding a Proton booster and Block DM upper stage toward a position in geostationary orbit to provide weather observations over Siberia, other parts of Russia’s Far East, and the Asia-Pacific region.

SpaceX is preparing this week for the second flight of the upgraded “Block 5” version of the company’s Falcon 9 rocket, and a hold-down firing of the booster was accomplished Wednesday at Cape Canaveral ahead of a middle-of-the-night launch this weekend with a Canadian-owned commercial communications satellite. The static fire test occurred at 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT) Wednesday.

NASA said Saturday that the launch of four astronauts on SpaceX’s first operational Crew Dragon mission to the International Space Station has been delayed from Oct. 31 until “no sooner than early-to-mid November,” allowing time for SpaceX to resolve an issue with Falcon 9 rocket engines that halted a recent launch attempt with a GPS navigation satellite.