SpaceX crews at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California rolled out a Falcon 9 rocket and lifted it vertical atop its launch pad ahead of a planned blastoff Wednesday with a Spanish radar observation satellite and two test probes for a planned global broadband Internet network.
These photos captured Tuesday at Vandenberg show the 229-foot-tall (70-meter) rocket at Space Launch Complex 4-East, SpaceX’s launch pad at the West Coast spaceport formerly used for Titan 4 rocket flights.
The first stage booster slated to launch Spain’s Paz Earth observation mission and SpaceX’s Microsat-2a and Microsat-2b payloads previously flew in August 2017 with the Taiwanese Formosat 5 satellite. It was recovered aboard SpaceX’s drone ship in the Pacific Ocean.
SpaceX has no plans to recover the first stage intact on Wednesday launch.
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