Watch the Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon arrive at the launch pad (members only)

A United Launch Atlas 5 rocket is set to launch the U.S. Air Force’s fourth Advanced Extremely High Frequency communications satellite from Cape Canaveral. This timeline shows the major mission events planned over a three-and-a-half-hour flight to an optimized geostationary transfer orbit.

The last Dragon flight from pad 39A was the CRS-33 mission in August 2025. SpaceX is preparing for the just the second pad 40 launch supporting NASA’s Commercial Crew Program no earlier than Feb. 11.

Tech pioneer and entrepreneur Jeff Bezos said this week his growing launch company, Blue Origin, plans to debut a 30-story satellite booster built and launched from Florida by the end of the decade.