Video: Groundbreaking for commercial crew access tower

Two veteran NASA astronauts rocketed away from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Saturday to begin a test flight of a new commercial spaceship designed, built and owned by SpaceX.

Loaded with supplies to keep the International Space Station’s crew fed, clothed and busy with new science projects, a Cygnus cargo vessel sped into orbit today atop an Atlas 5 rocket.

SpaceX and SES, owner of a 5.8-ton commercial telecom satellite poised for launch from Cape Canaveral on Wednesday, struck a deal to tweak the Falcon 9 rocket’s launch profile to give the SES 9 spacecraft a stronger push toward its operating post more than 22,000 miles above Earth.