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LOS ANGELES， Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- After more than five years， the historic launch pad has a rocket on it again. SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket has gone vertical at U.S. space agency NASA's historic Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) for the first time.


"Falcon 9 rocket now vertical at Cape Canaveral on launch complex 39-A. This is the same launch pad used by the Saturn V rocket that first took people to the moon in 1969. We are honored to be allowed to use it，" SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk posted on Instagram Friday， along with a photo of the Falcon 9 on LC-39A， which is part of NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.


According to the California-based company， Falcon 9 will blast robotic Dragon cargo capsule， carrying cargo and science experiments toward the International Space Station.


"Targeting Feb. 18 for Dragon's next resupply mission to the @@Space_Station - our 1st launch from LC-39A at @@NASA's Kennedy Space Center，" SpaceX posted on Twitter.


Over the years， NASA's Apollo moon missions and space shuttles lifted off from LC-39A. The last launch from the historic launch pad took place in July 2011， when the final flight of the Space Shuttle Atlantis lifted off. It was also the last-ever mission of NASA's entire space shuttle program.


In 2014， SpaceX signed a 20-year lease for LC-39A. After making some modifications to adapt it to the needs of SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets， the company is now ready to start using the historic luanchpad.


Originally， the U.S. private space firm relied on Launch Complex 40 (LC40) to support all of its Florida launches. But on Sept. 1， 2016， a Falcon 9 rocket exploded on the pad during preflight fueling and the site was badly damaged.


SpaceX returned to launching rockets in January， four months after the explosion in last fall that destroyed a Falcon 9 and its payload， the 200 million U.S. dollars Amos-6 communications satellite.


On Jan. 14， the U.S. private space firm successfully delivered 10 satellites to low-Earth orbit and landed its Falcon 9 on a drone ship in the Pacific Ocean.


BEIJING Luis Aparicio White Sox Jersey , Dec. 26 (Xinhua) -- Chinese stocks closed higher on Tuesday, with the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index up 0.78 percent, at 3,306.12 points.


The Shenzhen Component Index closed 0.15 percent higher at 11,021.83 points. The ChiNext Index, China's NASDAQ-style board of growth enterprises, gained 0.17 percent to close at 1,758.82 points.




China's box-office revenues surged in 2017 after slowing sharply the preceding year, as the world's second-largest movie market edges closer to overtaking the US.


Ticket revenue grew 13.45 percent to 55.9 billion yuan ($8.6 billion) on the mainland in 2017, more than triple 2016's growth rate, Xinhua news agency reported late Tuesday, citing data from the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television).


China's box-office grew just 3.7 percent in 2016, dramatically slower than 2015's 48 percent growth.


Over half of 2017's ticket revenue came from domestic films, with record breaking patriotic action blockbuster "Wolf Warrior 2" collecting 5.7 billion yuan, topping the year's box office list.


The American action thriller "The Fate of The Furious" came in second, with box-office revenue of 2.7 billion yuan.


International films -- most of which were made in the US -- grossed 25.8 billion yuan and accounted for 46 percent of 2017's total revenue, compared to 19 billion yuan and 42 percent in 2016.


Hollywood has a keen eye on China's potentially lucrative movie market, although the government strictly limits the number of foreign films that can be released in Chinese cinemas.


China also takes measures to help boost domestic films' performance, including limiting the screening of foreign films during peak seasons and rewarding cinemas for playing more domestic titles.


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