Shuttle Atlantis unwrapped ahead of public debut

Live coverage of the countdown and launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center with the Koreasat 5A communications satellite. Including a live view of the launch pad (members only).

A steel tube built as a stand-in for the core stage of NASA’s Space Launch System has arrived at the Kennedy Space Center for a series of rehearsals to hone the skills of technicians before the real rocket reaches the spaceport, an oft-delayed milestone that could still be a year or more away.

On its second flight, SpaceX’s mammoth Falcon Heavy rocket hurled an Arabsat communications satellite the size of a school bus nearly one-quarter the way to the moon Thursday, days after NASA’s administrator identified the privately-developed rocket as a backup to the agency’s behind-schedule Space Launch System for sending astronauts back to the lunar surface.