Live coverage: SpaceX launches another batch of Starlink satellites

These photos show a 194-foot-tall United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket standing on pad 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in advance of a planned launch with the U.S. Space Force’s fifth SBIRS missile warning satellite.

United Launch Alliance teams ran through an 11-hour countdown Friday at Cape Canaveral to rehearse procedures before the first flight of a modified Atlas 5 rocket with Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule Dec. 20.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket exploded in the final minutes of a simulated countdown at Cape Canaveral on Thursday, destroying the booster and an Israeli communications satellite valued at nearly $200 million.