Shuttle Atlantis unwrapped ahead of public debut

SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk released the first images of his company’s Falcon Heavy rocket Wednesday, showing the massive triple-core booster almost fully assembled inside its hangar at the Kennedy Space Center’s pad 39A, where it is scheduled to lift off some time in January.

Watch a time-lapse video of the 229-foot-tall (70-meter) Falcon 9 rocket being lifted into place on pad 39A in readiness for the launch of the SES 10 communications satellite. This will be a major milestone for SpaceX as it will mark the first time a flown Falcon 9 first stage has been reused.

Set to resume a brisk pace of launch activity after a nearly six-week respite, SpaceX test-fired its next Falcon 9 rocket Thursday at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida ahead of a planned liftoff Monday with several tons of experiments and supplies for the International Space Station.