SpaceX conducts engine test fire for communications satellite launch (members only)

Weeks after leaving its factory in New Orleans, the core stage for NASA’s first Space Launch System flight has been raised into a test stand at the Stennis Space Center to begin a series of checkouts culminating in an eight-minute engine-firing later this year.

On its first nighttime launch, Rocket Lab’s Electron booster climbed into orbit Sunday from New Zealand with a trio of small U.S. military payloads, demonstrating the privately-developed rocket’s ability to help meet the Air Force’s growing demand for smallsat launches.

Watch live views from the Kennedy Space Center’s launch pad 39A as SpaceX prepares for the first flight of the Block 5 Falcon 9 rocket. The rocket is scheduled to launch the Bangabandhu 1 communications satellite no earlier than 10 May.