Watch Falcon 9 rocket lifted upright

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket sporting human-rating upgrades such as new composite pressurant tanks briefly ignited its nine Merlin engines Thursday afternoon on a launch pad at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and SpaceX later declared the pre-launch milestone complete in preparation for a critical test flight with a commercial crew capsule as soon as late February.

Leaving crewmate Peggy Whitson behind in orbit for an extended mission, a Russian cosmonaut and his French co-pilot undocked from the International Space Station early Friday and plunged back to Earth, landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan to close out a 196-day mission.

The Starlink 12-18 mission included 13 satellites that have Direct to Cell capabilities. Liftoff from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station happened at 1:53 p.m. EST (1853 UTC).