These photos show SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, with a previously-flown first stage booster, sitting on its launch pad Tuesday at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California ahead of the scheduled liftoff of the Radarsat Constellation Mission.
The Falcon 9 stands 229 feet (70 meters) tall and is set for liftoff during a 13-minute launch window opening at 10:17 a.m. EDT (7:17 a.m. PDT; 1417 GMT) Wednesday from Space Launch Complex 4-East at Vandenberg, a military facility around 140 miles (225 kilometers) northwest of Los Angeles.
These images were taken Tuesday evening as photographers set up remote cameras near the launch pad on California’s Central Coast.
The Radarsat Constellation Mission is a $900 million project led by the Canadian Space Agency, consisting of three identical spacecraft heading to orbit around 373 miles (600 kilometers) above Earth to survey Canadian territory, maritime waters, ice sheets, forests, crops and cities for at least seven years.
Read our full story for details on the mission.
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