Live coverage: Kennedy Space Center to reopen Friday

SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket stood atop historic launch pad 39A on Monday, one day before 27 kerosene-fueled rocket engines will dispatch the towering rocket into space with nearly 5 million pounds of thrust.

The shift in launch date is to allow more time to build in redundancy to account for the helium leak. The launch is currently scheduled for no earlier than Saturday, May 25, at 3:09 p.m. EDT (1909 UTC).

Set to resume a brisk pace of launch activity after a nearly six-week respite, SpaceX test-fired its next Falcon 9 rocket Thursday at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida ahead of a planned liftoff Monday with several tons of experiments and supplies for the International Space Station.