Video: Progress launches and docks

Launch companies and U.S. Space Force range officials at Cape Canaveral are reassessing long-standing weather rules, looking at beefing up rocket defenses against lightning, and considering strategies to prepare for two different launch windows on a given day to guard against weather delays, something SpaceX may demonstrate with a Falcon 9 launch early Thursday.

Greg Wyler has corralled blue-chip companies to invest in his dream to beam affordable broadband Internet signals around the world, a mission he sees as a prerequisite to providing billions of unconnected, underserved people with the tools necessary to succeed in a modern marketplace of goods, services and information.

The next Delta 4-Heavy rocket was raised vertical Friday at Cape Canaveral, signaling the start of a comprehensive series of pre-flight tests before liftoff next year with a top secret U.S. government spy satellite.