Video: Falcon 9 rocket fires up engines on launch pad (members only)

NASA’s new communications satellite, launched to a preliminary orbit August 18, has ascended to geosynchronous altitude more than 22,000 miles up, deployed its giant antennas and extended twin solar arrays to begin in-space commissioning.

For the final time, a SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule was released from the International Space Station’s robotic arm Tuesday and splashed down hours later in Pacific Ocean southwest of Los Angeles. Beginning later this year, SpaceX will fly upgraded Dragon freighters that will dock automatically with the space station and parachute into the Atlantic Ocean east of Florida.

Astronauts Steve Bowen and Woody Hoburg suited up and floated outside the International Space Station Friday for a spacewalk to install and unroll an upgraded solar array wing delivered to the complex earlier this week by a SpaceX Cargo Dragon supply ship.