Live coverage: Falcon 9 disintegrates after launch

The first launch for Iridium’s next-generation mobile communications fleet has been pushed back four months — from December until April — to resolve a technical problem inside the spacecraft’s Ka-band communications payload.

Buoyed by lessons from past attempts and a forecast for calm seas, SpaceX engineers expect a good shot at landing a Falcon 9 booster on a stationary platform in the Atlantic Ocean on Monday after liftoff from Cape Canaveral.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon Endeavour spacecraft rolled out to pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Friday. Hydraulics raised the 215-foot-tall rocket vertical on the historic launch pad in preparation for liftoff with four astronauts heading for the International Space Station.