Watch Falcon 9 rocket lifted upright

The mobile platform intended to carry NASA’s Space Launch System will trek to the mega-rocket’s launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida as soon as Thursday, before heading inside the spaceport’s huge Vehicle Assembly Building for the first time next month.

Wrapping up a record-setting flight, Peggy Whitson, America’s most experienced astronaut with nearly two years of time in orbit across three missions, returned to Earth Saturday after a 288-day stay aboard the International Space Station, landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan with Soyuz MS-04 commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and flight engineer Jack Fischer.

SpaceX this week released a new batch of photos showing the Feb. 6 liftoff of the company’s first Falcon Heavy rocket from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, followed by landing of the launcher’s two side boosters around eight minutes later at nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.