Watch the Falcon 9 launch from pad 39A

Vice President Mike Pence said Tuesday that NASA should land astronauts near the south pole of the moon within five years “by any means necessary,” calling for “new urgency” in the U.S. space program and sounding a warning for entrenched aerospace contractors to better meet schedule and cost commitments, or else lose work to other companies.

A scaled-down team of technicians and medical personnel — wearing facial masks as a precaution against the global coronavirus pandemic — met a three-person space station crew on the steppes of Kazakhstan Friday after their landing aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

This is the first out of at least eight planned launches supporting the broadband internet satellite constellation in November. Liftoff from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station is scheduled for 8:31 p.m. EST (0131 UTC).