Live coverage: Falcon 9 rocket conducts static fire test

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch an Intelsat communications satellite with a NASA-funded air pollution monitor to be positioned over the Americas in 2022, officials announced Tuesday.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket rumbled into the sky Wednesday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, flexing the rocket’s muscles and lofting a massive Intelsat satellite to orbit supporting wireless communications, television broadcasting and trans-Atlantic data relays.

Five commercial Earth-imaging satellites rode a Long March 11 rocket into orbit Thursday from the Jiuquan space base in northwestern China.