Q&A with NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine (members only)

The mission is the second planned Falcon 9 launch for SpaceX in the span of six hours. Liftoff from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center is targeting 10:34 p.m. EDT (0234 UTC).

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Space Launch Complex 4-East at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 12:17 p.m. EST (9:17 a.m. PST; 1717 GMT) Saturday with an oceanography satellite jointly developed by U.S. and European space and weather agencies. The rocket’s first stage booster returned to a bullseye landing back at Vandenberg.

A Soyuz rocket arrived at a launch pad Tuesday in Kazakhstan for liftoff later this week with a satellite to monitor natural disasters and track forest fires from orbit and 72 secondary payloads from Russia, the United States, Germany, Norway and Japan.