Drone’s view of Sunday’s SpaceX rocket landing

SpaceX moved closer to its next launch with a successful hold-down engine firing Saturday at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, sailing through a readiness check for a planned liftoff Wednesday with a clandestine U.S. government payload named Zuma.

The mission comes on the heels of SpaceX having to stand down from launching the Polaris Dawn astronaut mission due to weather concerns. The lost booster, tail number B1062, was aiming for a record 23rd landing on the droneship ‘A Shortfall of Gravitas’ when it collapsed and exploded.

A network of amateur skywatchers and satellite observers have located a classified spacecraft owned by the National Reconnaissance Office, a U.S. government intelligence agency, in low Earth orbit after its launch May 1 from Florida aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.