Video: Atlas 5 rolls out to launch pad with the Air Force’s AEHF 5 comsat (members only)

SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket stood atop historic launch pad 39A on Monday, one day before 27 kerosene-fueled rocket engines will dispatch the towering rocket into space with nearly 5 million pounds of thrust.

A Russian military communications satellite launched Friday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, riding a Proton rocket and Breeze M upper stage into orbit on just the second Proton flight this year, the lowest annual flight rate for Russia’s most powerful operational launcher since the 1960s.

The first upgraded Falcon 9 rocket, known as the ‘Block 5’, takes flight from launch complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center on 11 May 2018.