SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon Endeavour spacecraft rolled out to pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Friday. Hydraulics raised the 215-foot-tall rocket vertical on the historic launch pad in preparation for liftoff with four astronauts heading for the International Space Station.
The mission will bring the total number of orbital launches from Florida in 2024 to 72, tying the total for 2023. Liftoff happened on Wednesday at 5:47 p.m. EDT (2147 UTC) from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
A Russian military satellite designed to detect missile launches arrived in orbit Thursday following a successful liftoff aboard a Soyuz rocket from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome.