Video: SpaceX Dragon departs space station

Buoyed by lessons from past attempts and a forecast for calm seas, SpaceX engineers expect a good shot at landing a Falcon 9 booster on a stationary platform in the Atlantic Ocean on Monday after liftoff from Cape Canaveral.

A nest of genetically-engineered mice, a research study to observe the behavior of fires in space, and an experiment that could lead to brewing beer in microgravity are among more than 5,700 pounds of cargo inside a SpaceX Dragon capsule awaiting launch from Cape Canaveral to the International Space Station Thursday.

A commercial Northrop Grumman Cygnus supply ship berthed at the International Space Station fired its main engine for 50 seconds Tuesday in a test of the spacecraft’s ability to reboost, and possibly eventually deorbit, the massive research outpost.