Shuttle Atlantis unwrapped ahead of public debut

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket ignited its nine Merlin main engines for several seconds Thursday at launch pad 39A in Florida, moving the previously-flown booster closer to a scheduled blastoff Monday with a Bulgarian communications satellite.

After a lull in launch activity this fall, SpaceX teams at Cape Canaveral are preparing for up to four Falcon 9 missions in December to close out 2019 with a surge of launches.

SpaceX is expected to transfer its next Falcon 9 rocket to launch pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Monday with a direct-to-home television broadcast satellite on-board, setting up for a two-and-a-half hour predawn launch window Tuesday.