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

Watch a video replay of Monday night’s hotfire of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The rocket is set for launch Thursday with Qatar’s Es’hail 2 communications satellite.

Reid Wiseman, a veteran U.S. Navy test pilot and former chief of NASA’s astronaut corps, will lead the four-person crew assigned to the Artemis 2 mission to carry people to the vicinity of the moon for the first time in more than 50 years. Wiseman says he views the crew’s job as making sure NASA’s Orion spacecraft is ready for more demanding missions later this decade to support moon landings and assembly of a space station called the Gateway in lunar orbit.

Seven astronauts and cosmonauts are gearing up for launches April 9 and April 22 to the International Space Station, replacing seven outgoing crew members set to land in Kazakhstan and off the coast of Florida on April 17 and April 28.