Live coverage: 400th Proton rocket takes off with Russian satellite

SpaceX rolled out a Falcon 9 rocket to launch pad 39A early Tuesday for a prelaunch hotfire test before this weekend’s liftoff with a classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office, the U.S. government spy satellite agency. The static fire test was completed at 3:02 p.m. (1902 GMT).

SpaceX launched its fifth Falcon 9 rocket in 22 days on Saturday, beginning a mission to deploy 52 more Starlink internet satellites and two rideshare payloads for Capella Space and Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems. Liftoff from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida occurred at 6:56 p.m. EDT (2256 GMT), and SpaceX successfully landed the first stage on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.

After an 11-day delay, SpaceX planned to deploy 60 more Starlink broadband satellites with a Falcon 9 rocket launch scheduled for 10:22 a.m. EDT (1422 GMT) Monday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. But SpaceX scrubbed the launch less than a minute before liftoff due to bad weather.