Video: SpaceX test-fires Falcon 9 rocket at pad 40 (members only)

Debuting lighter structural components to carry heavier satellites into orbit, a Russian Proton rocket fired into space from Kazakhstan on Thursday and successfully placed a U.S.-built television broadcast craft into orbit for Intelsat and DirecTV.

The four astronauts will spend three to five days in a free-flier Dragon mission that will see them orbit over the north and south poles. The crew arrived in Florida on Monday for their final week of quarantine before launch.

The Starlink 17-12 mission will send the two dozen broadband internet satellites into a polar, low Earth orbit. SpaceX is targeting liftoff from pad 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base no earlier than Friday, Sept. 19, at 9:31 a.m. PDT (12:31 p.m. EDT / 1631 UTC).