Shuttle Atlantis unwrapped ahead of public debut

The towering mobile platform for NASA’s Space Launch System emerged from the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida Tuesday morning, returning to a seaside launch complex to complete tests interrupted by Hurricane Dorian last week.

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.

SpaceX’s ground team hydraulically hoisted a 213-foot-tall Falcon 9 rocket vertical at pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center before dawn Monday ahead of a planned liftoff with a space station-bound robotic resupply craft.