Video: Falcon 9 rocket fires engines in pre-launch test (members only)

SpaceX’s launch team loaded liquid propellants into the company’s first upgraded Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket Friday at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and the countdown rehearsal culminated in a brief ignition of the launcher’s nine Merlin main engines on the launch pad.

SpaceX’s two fast-maneuvering payload fairing recovery vessels were in the right place at the right time Monday to catch both halves of the nose shroud jettisoned by a Falcon 9 rocket climbing into orbit with South Korea’s Anasis 2 military communications satellite.

A Russian military surveillance satellite designed to monitor adversaries’ radio signals successfully launched Saturday aboard a Soyuz rocket from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome.