Live coverage: Yurchikhin, Fischer reach space station after fast-track rendezvous

A troublesome liquid oxygen valve on the Space Launch System’s first flight-rated core stage will keep NASA from performing a second test-firing of the rocket’s four main engines this week.

SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket at 1:09 p.m. PDT (4:09 p.m. EDT) Wednesday from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, on a mission hauling 51 more Starlink internet satellites into orbit.

The core piece of NASA’s first huge Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket designed to carry astronauts back to the moon fired its main engines more than eight minutes Thursday in southern Mississippi, acing a crucial test before the it ships to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to prepare for liftoff.