Watch the Falcon Heavy fire up its engines

The Saturday night launch included another batch of 20 Starlink satellites that include Direct to Cell capabilities. The Starlink 9-13 mission lifted off from pad 4E at 9:25 p.m. PST (12:25 a.m. EST, 0525 UTC).

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket sporting human-rating upgrades such as new composite pressurant tanks briefly ignited its nine Merlin engines Thursday afternoon on a launch pad at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and SpaceX later declared the pre-launch milestone complete in preparation for a critical test flight with a commercial crew capsule as soon as late February.

NASA has selected 14 companies for contracts of more than $370 million to advance technology for human missions to the moon and Mars. Most of the money will support flight demonstrations by SpaceX, United Launch Alliance, and other companies that could lead to in-space refueling and propellant depots for reusable lunar landers and deep space transportation vehicles.