Watch the Falcon 9 launch from pad 39A

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

Engineers clad in clean suits finished stowing last-minute cargo into SpaceX’s Dragon supply ship Friday, including 40 mice and bacterial research specimens, a day before it is scheduled to blast off to the International Space Station in the first flight from the Kennedy Space Center’s historic Apollo-era launch pad 39A since 2011.

SpaceX conducted the first hold-down firing of an upgraded version of the Falcon 9 rocket Friday at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, in preparation for launch next week with Bangladesh’s first communications satellite.