Live coverage: Kennedy Space Center to reopen Friday

Loaded with over 7,300 pounds of goods for the International Space Station, a commercial Cygnus cargo vessel was mounted atop its Atlas 5 rocket booster Friday for launch Dec. 3.

The Starlink 17-7 mission is the penultimate planned launch of these broadband satellites in August. SpaceX is targeting liftoff from pad 4E at 9:59 p.m. PDT (12:59 a.m. EDT / 0459 UTC).

Mission controllers plan to unlock the blades on NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter and spin them up to more than 2,000 rpm for a test later this week, a bit of “calisthenics”  before the rotorcraft’s first flight in the atmosphere of Mars as soon as this weekend, the helicopter’s operations lead said Monday.