Time-lapse: Falcon 9 lifted vertical on pad 39A (members only)

A startup company named i-Space became the first Chinese private firm to achieve orbit Thursday with a successful launch of a light-class Hyperbola 1 booster.

A solid-fueled rocket motor mounted horizontally on a Utah hillside ignited and powered up to more than 3 million pounds of thrust Tuesday in a final full-up test-firing before a similar booster helps propel NASA’s huge Space Launch System away from Earth on a demonstration flight in 2018.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket will go from Cape Canaveral to low Earth orbit in less than 10 minutes Wednesday with a Dragon capsule heading for the International Space Station carrying more than 5,600 pounds of supplies and experiments.