Photos: Falcon takes flight

Mission managers will be closely monitoring the weather for the first launch of astronauts aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft, not just around the Kennedy Space Center, but along a corridor stretching thousands of miles across the Atlantic Ocean in case the crew capsule has to escape from its Falcon 9 rocket during the climb into orbit.

Assuming a May 1 launch, the Starliner spacecraft would dock with the ISS on May 2. The spacecraft will launch on the 100th flight of United Launch Alliance’s Atlas 5 rocket.

For the second consecutive day, SpaceX called off a Falcon 9 launch attempt at Cape Canaveral on Thursday evening, this time to complete a software update on the first 60 satellites for the company’s Starlink network to provide high-speed Internet service from orbit.