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

A long-delayed Russian science module was transported by train from Moscow to the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan earlier this month for a final series of electrical tests and outfitting before launch to the International Space Station next year.

An interplanetary space weather station rocketed away from Cape Canaveral aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket Wednesday, speeding toward a remote operating post a million miles from Earth to help forecasters warn of intense solar storms.

SpaceX’s next Falcon Heavy mission, set for April 18 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, will launch a powerhouse bus-sized broadband satellite for Viasat into a high-altitude circular geostationary orbit, a demanding flight profile that will require disposal of all three of the rocket’s reusable boosters.