Watch live views from the Kennedy Space Center’s launch pad 39A as SpaceX prepares for the first flight of the Block 5 Falcon 9 rocket. The rocket is scheduled to launch the Bangabandhu 1 communications satellite no earlier than 10 May.
The launch of Bangladesh’s first communications satellite on top of a new version of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is set for Thursday, officials said Monday, after a data review following a hold-down engine firing last week.
SpaceX’s launch team loaded liquid propellants into the company’s first upgraded Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket Friday at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and the countdown rehearsal culminated in a brief ignition of the launcher’s nine Merlin main engines on the launch pad.
SpaceX’s first Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket, sporting changes to make the booster easier to reuse, rolled out of its hangar and up the ramp to launch pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Thursday ahead of a planned hold-down engine firing.
SpaceX conducted the first hold-down firing of an upgraded version of the Falcon 9 rocket Friday at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, in preparation for launch next week with Bangladesh’s first communications satellite.
SpaceX technicians at Cape Canaveral are readying for the first launch of an upgraded Falcon 9 rocket configuration next week, a mission that will debut changes to make the launcher safer for astronauts and make it easier — and less expensive — for the company to reuse first stage boosters.
Look back on the Oct. 30 launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with this gallery of photos showing the 229-foot-tall launcher lifting off from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Heading into the home stretch of a banner year, SpaceX launched its third Falcon 9 rocket flight of the month Monday with a Korean-owned commercial communications satellite built to connect customers across a swath from the Middle East to East Asia.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is set for liftoff from Cape Canaveral on Monday, heading due east over the Atlantic Ocean to deliver the Koreasat 5A communications satellite into orbit around 36 minutes later.
Live coverage of the countdown and launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center with the Koreasat 5A communications satellite. Including a live view of the launch pad (members only).