Watch SpaceX’s rocket fly through the air on Thursday morning as the company’s rocket engines roar to life.
The company is launching its Falcon 9 rocket from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on the coast of Florida, and the Falcon Heavy rocket will launch from Kennedy Space Center.
Both launches are scheduled to take place at 10:06 a.m.
EDT (0706 GMT) and 1:06 p.m., respectively.
The Falcon 9 will carry a commercial payload called SpaceX’s Cygnus spacecraft.
The Cygnos spacecraft, or “Dragon,” is scheduled to lift off atop the rocket, which is being built by a company called Aerojet Rocketdyne, a subsidiary of the Boeing Company.
The rocket will use a rocket engine developed at NASA’s Kennedy Space center, and it is being designed to fly at more than 6,600 mph (11,400 kph).
The rocket is expected to be the first to fly in the high-altitude region, where the high pressure of Earth’s atmosphere can cause extreme temperatures.
SpaceX will be the only company in the world to fly an orbital rocket at this altitude.
The countdown to launch began on Thursday, when the rocket engines were ignited.
SpaceX said the engines were running at an operating rate of about 2,000 pounds per second (1,400 pounds per square inch) during the countdown.
The rockets will be fired into low-Earth orbit, where they will make their way into the upper atmosphere and then return to Earth.
Spacex said that the first stage will make its way to an altitude of about 1,100 miles (1.6 kilometers) and will deploy a massive parachute, which will slow it down.
The second stage, which can be larger, will make a sharp turn and then deploy a parachute.
The third stage, that can fly farther, will deploy an upper stage and fly back into space.
The launch will be SpaceX’s fourth for the year.
The company also launched a Falcon 9 Heavy rocket last month, which had a launch time of about 20 minutes.
The United Launch Alliance, which operates the Atlas V rocket program, is the sole owner of the rocket.
SpaceX is also in competition with Orbital ATK, which was a customer of the Atlas rocket program until SpaceX bought it in 2018.
Orbital ATK has said it will keep working with SpaceX on the Atlas program.
The ULA rocket program is the commercial launch business for Atlas V rockets.
It is one of the three main U.S. launch companies that are involved in the United Launch Command system.
The Atlas rocket family is designed to carry multiple satellites and is used to launch U.N. and international agencies into low Earth orbit.
