Watch the Falcon Heavy fire up its engines

The Starlink 17-12 mission will send the two dozen broadband internet satellites into a polar, low Earth orbit. SpaceX is targeting liftoff from pad 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base no earlier than Friday, Sept. 19, at 9:31 a.m. PDT (12:31 p.m. EDT / 1631 UTC).

Spaceflight Now’s camera at the Kennedy Space Center’s Complex 39 press site captured this view of the Falcon 9 rocket’s high-altitude anomaly Sunday.

The last unflown variant of United Launch Alliance’s Atlas 5 launcher — fitted with a five-meter fairing and a single strap-on solid rocket booster — will carry a pair of U.S. military space surveillance satellites toward geosynchronous orbit from Cape Canaveral late this year, according to a Space Force spokesperson.