Shuttle Atlantis unwrapped ahead of public debut

Soaring into a clear early evening sky, SpaceX’s second Falcon Heavy rocket lifted off from a seaside launch complex Thursday at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida before a crowd of thousands of space enthusiasts.

Maintaining a brisk flight rate three days after its last launch, SpaceX sent a Falcon 9 booster powered by a reused first stage into orbit Wednesday evening from Florida with an Airbus-built communications satellite for SES and EchoStar.

SpaceX’s launch of the Starlink 6-56 mission will move the company past the total number of Space Shuttle Program missions from Launch Complex 39A. Liftoff is set for 2:42 p.m. EDT (1842 UTC).