Video: Falcon 9 stands at the launch pad

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.

A Chinese Long March 2D rocket successfully delivered seven satellites into a 300-mile-high orbit Friday, boosting international missions to measure seismic signals that could help predict future earthquakes, take detailed imagery of planet Earth and test compact camera, propulsion and radio technology.

Watch the first SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch since a catastrophic launch pad explosion at Cape Canaveral. The Falcon 9 first stage was successfully recovered after landing on a floating platform in the Pacific.