4K Video: Watch the Falcon 9 test fire its 1st stage engines (members only)

The launch faced long odds with poor weather in the forecast for a fourth day in a row, but SpaceX was able to launch from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Thursday, Sept. 11, at 9:56 p.m. EDT (0156 UTC).

The mission, dubbed NG-21, was the second out of three planned launches of a Cygnus spacecraft onboard a Falcon 9 rocket. Liftoff happened on Sunday, Aug. 4, at 11:02 a.m. EDT (1502 UTC).

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.