Live coverage: Falcon 9 rocket lifts off with three satellites

SpaceX fired up nine Merlin main engines at the bottom of a previously-flown Falcon 9 booster Saturday at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, running the rocket through a practice countdown before a scheduled liftoff Jan. 18 with a Crew Dragon capsule to test the human-rated ship’s high-altitude abort capability.

China launched a high-altitude satellite Monday fitted with a powerful telescope to collect nearly continuous imagery of the Asia-Pacific from geostationary orbit, an apparently unique capability that could help track foreign naval activity, according to Chinese news reports.

A previously-undisclosed payload funded by a U.S. military research agency rode into orbit with a Spanish communications satellite on SpaceX’s most recent Falcon 9 rocket launch March 6, officials said Friday.