Shuttle Atlantis unwrapped ahead of public debut

SpaceX raised a Falcon 9 rocket vertical Tuesday on pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, positioning the launch vehicle for a flight Wednesday carrying 57 more Starlink Internet satellites and two commercial Earth-imaging microsatellites for BlackSky.

These photos follow the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft through a final rehearsal, the late stowage of cargo, and finally the lifting of the launcher vertical atop pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

A last-of-its-kind piece of space hardware — the only remaining shuttle external fuel tank — makes its way along the city streets of Los Angeles to the California Science Center.