Photos: Falcon takes flight

Images taken inside SpaceX facilities at Cape Canaveral and released by NASA Thursday show the Crew Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 booster assigned to an in-flight abort test of the new human-rated spaceship later this year, a prerequisite before astronauts climb aboard for a mission to the International Space Station.

SpaceX’s Dragon supply ship departed the International Space Station on Wednesday, fired rocket thrusters to brake out of orbit, and parachuted to a picture-perfect splashdown in the Pacific Ocean with approximately 3,461 pounds of experiment samples and equipment.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 10:17:10 a.m. EDT (7:17:10 a.m. PDT; 1417:10 GMT) Wednesday with the Radarsat Constellation Mission for the Canadian government. The Falcon 9’s first stage successfully landed back at Vandenberg around eight minutes later.