Video: SpaceX Dragon departs space station

Rough seas in the Pacific Ocean will keep SpaceX’s Dragon cargo capsule in space a few days longer than planned, with the unpiloted supply ship’s return to Earth now set for Saturday hauling a load of research specimens from the International Space Station back to the ground.

A test-firing of a twice-flown Falcon 9 booster Friday at Cape Canaveral paved the way for SpaceX’s next launch, scheduled for Monday night with a heavyweight Boeing-built communications satellite to beam broadband signals to Japan and the Pacific islands.

A Falcon 9 rocket is again standing upright on launch pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida after ground teams lowered the booster Friday to swap out mice heading to the International Space Station for medical experiments.