Live views of launch pad 39A (members only)

The launch of a commercial Bulgarian television broadcast satellite from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida is set for Monday after SpaceX ran through a mock countdown Thursday and test-fired a previously-flown Falcon 9 rocket’s Merlin main engines.

A test-firing of a Raptor engine on the latest in a series of Starship test rockets Tuesday night in Texas moved SpaceX closer to performing a low-altitude “hop” to gather data on the vehicle’s launch and landing characteristics.

The second flight of China’s new medium-lift Long March 7A rocket successfully placed an experimental satellite into orbit Thursday, following a failed launch of the same configuration last year caused by a problem in a booster liquid oxygen system.