Video: Falcon 9 fires up engines for static fire test (members only)

Two newly arrived space station astronauts, both veteran spacewalkers, suited up and ventured outside the lab complex Thursday to install additional wireless communications gear, to replace a balky camera and its pan-and-tilt mechanism and to remove two suspect hoses in the station’s ammonia coolant system.

SpaceX test-fired a Falcon 9 rocket at Cape Canaveral on Saturday in a pre-flight checkout designed to verify the launcher’s engines are ready to loft a U.S. military GPS navigation satellite into orbit Nov. 5. An engine problem forced SpaceX to abort a launch attempt in early October.

Orbital ATK’s next commercial resupply freighter going to the International Space Station will be named the S.S. John Glenn, paying tribute to the legendary first American to orbit the Earth.