4K Video: Watch the Falcon 9 test fire its 1st stage engines (members only)

SpaceX hopes to launch Falcon 9 rockets from its two launch pads in Florida and its one in California on Saturday night. Liftoff of the Eutelsat 36D satellite from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center happened at 5:52 p.m. EDT (2152 UTC), the opening of a nearly four-hour window.

Ready for a resupply run to the International Space Station, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket was raised vertical at Cape Canaveral’s Complex 40 launch pad Wednesday ahead of a planned liftoff with more than 5,700 pounds of science experiments and crew supplies.

SpaceX debuted a more reusable, higher-thrust model of the Falcon 9 rocket Friday, hauling Bangladesh’s first communications satellite into orbit from Florida’s Space Coast.