Live coverage: Kennedy Space Center to reopen Friday

The mission is third time SpaceX will launch satellites for AST SpaceMobile and its first of the Block 2 iteration of the BlueBird satellites. Liftoff from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station is scheduled for 2:39 a.m. EDT (0639 UTC).

Vice President Mike Pence is visiting NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Thursday, where he is expected to give remarks inside the Vehicle Assembly Building and tour the spaceport.

SpaceX plans to begin construction of a new rocket and spacecraft next year that could lead to human landings on Mars as early as 2024, scaling up technologies currently being perfected with the company’s Falcon 9 family of boosters to ensure reliability, reusability and, as a result, realistically low costs, founder Elon Musk said Friday.