Q&A with Sara Seager, deputy director of science on NASA’s TESS mission (members only)

SpaceX teams at Cape Canaveral are readying for the company’s 10th Falcon 9 rocket launch of the year Wednesday, another flight devoted to delivering satellites to orbit for the Starlink internet network.

The United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket was transfered from its assembly building to the pad at Cape Canaveral’s Complex 41 today for Tuesday’s launch of a commercially-operated cargo ship to resupply the International Space Station.

A solid-fueled rocket motor mounted horizontally on a Utah hillside ignited and powered up to more than 3 million pounds of thrust Tuesday in a final full-up test-firing before a similar booster helps propel NASA’s huge Space Launch System away from Earth on a demonstration flight in 2018.