Live coverage: SpaceX prepares for next Falcon 9 launch

SpaceX’s manifest lists three customers who are sending their payloads to a mid-inclination orbit. Liftoff from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station is set for 8:48 p.m. ET (0048 UTC).

Fresh off the launch of its last four first-generation satellites, O3b Networks is in the early stages of selecting a builder and launch provider for a new series of spacecraft that will grow the company’s broadband communications capacity ten-fold, O3b’s chief executive said.

SpaceX’s final planned Crew Dragon test flight before astronauts ride the commercial spaceship into orbit is scheduled for Saturday, when an unpiloted crew capsule will fire off the top of a Falcon 9 rocket shortly after launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to test the craft’s in-flight emergency escape capability.