Video: Falcon 9 lifted vertical for static fire test at pad 39A

SpaceX’s launch team loaded super-chilled liquid propellants into a two-stage Falcon 9 rocket Wednesday and fired the booster’s nine first stage engines at Cape Canaveral, marching toward liftoff Monday with a NASA observatory built to find planets around other stars in our galactic neighborhood.

A SpaceX-owned supply ship arrived at the International Space Station on Sunday with 2.4 tons of cargo, including space debris and solar energy monitors mounted in the Dragon spacecraft’s external payload bay and more than 3,400 pounds of gear inside its reused pressurized module.

During its return voyage to Port Canaveral in Florida, a SpaceX Falcon 9 first stage booster, tail number B1058, toppled over and broke in half. The booster has made 19 flights including launching NASA astronauts to space for the first time from American soil after the Space Shuttle program ended.