Cocooned inside the nose cone of its Falcon 9 rocket booster, the U.S. Air Force’s X-37B spaceplane journeyed from a former space shuttle hangar at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, past the Vehicle Assembly Building and toward launch pad 39A last week ahead of liftoff Thursday.
Running through a practice countdown and hold-down engine firing at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket passed a key checkpoint Thursday ahead of liftoff next week with the U.S. Air Force’s fifth X-37B spaceplane flight, a mission that will come with several firsts.
SpaceX’s next Falcon 9 rocket ignited its Merlin main engines for several seconds Thursday at Kennedy Space Center’s pad 39A ahead of a planned launch next week.
SpaceX’s next Falcon 9 rocket arrived at Kennedy Space Center’s pad 39A on Thursday for a hold-down engine firing ahead of launch next week with the U.S. Air Force’s X-37B spaceplane. The brief engine ignition occurred at 4:30 p.m. EDT (2030 GMT).
A month after an X-37B mini-space shuttle glided to a landing on Kennedy Space Center’s runway in Florida, the U.S. Air Force announced Tuesday that the spaceplane’s next mission will launch in August aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket for the first time.