Live coverage: Falcon 9 disintegrates after launch

SpaceX has postponed the launch of its next Falcon 9 rocket indefinitely. The rocket was originally scheduled take off Wednesday from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida with a top secret U.S. government payload named Zuma. A few minutes after launch, the Falcon 9’s first stage will return for a landing at nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

An Ariane 5 rocket launched from French Guiana at 2150 GMT (5:50 p.m. EDT) Thursday with a pair of European-built communications satellites for the Brazilian government and KTsat, a South Korean telecom operator. Liftoff was delayed more than one hour to resolve a problem with ground equipment.

SpaceX’s next Falcon 9 rocket arrived at Kennedy Space Center’s pad 39A on Thursday for a hold-down engine firing ahead of launch next week with the U.S. Air Force’s X-37B spaceplane. The brief engine ignition occurred at 4:30 p.m. EDT (2030 GMT).