Live coverage: Falcon 9 disintegrates after launch

The last of Japan’s first series of HTV supply ships departed the International Space Station on Tuesday with several tons of trash, old batteries, and unneeded equipment, heading for a destructive re-entry before the debut of an upgraded cargo freighter design.

The Starlink 17-12 mission will send the two dozen broadband internet satellites into a polar, low Earth orbit. SpaceX is targeting liftoff from pad 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base no earlier than Friday, Sept. 19, at 9:31 a.m. PDT (12:31 p.m. EDT / 1631 UTC).

Watch a time lapse replay of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket as it was raised upright at launch pad 39A in Florida on Saturday, a day before its scheduled launch with a top secret payload for the U.S. government’s spy satellite agency.