Live views of launch pad 39A (members only)

SpaceX launch crews rolled out the company’s next Falcon 9 rocket to pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, then lifted the two-stage launcher vertical for a hold-down engine firing Thursday in preparation for launch next week with a South Korean-owned commercial communications satellite.

The NROL-167 mission is the fourth launch to add satellites to the National Reconnaissance Office’s so-called “proliferated architecture” constellation. Liftoff happened at 10:13 a.m. PDT (1:13 p.m. EDT, 1713 UTC).

Two astronauts floated outside the International Space Station early Friday for the first of four planned spacewalks to wrap up a complex multi-year job to replace 48 aging batteries in the lab’s solar power system with 24 more powerful lithium-ion units.