Live coverage: Falcon 9 disintegrates after launch

An airport-like viewing tower standing up to 30 stories tall is the centerpiece of SpaceX’s planned rocket refurbishment and operations base proposed for vacant land at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi has traveled to the International Space Station on a space shuttle and a Russian capsule. He’s now gearing up to launch on a SpaceX Crew Dragon spaceship, becoming only the third person to launch from Earth into orbit on three different types of spacecraft.

New videos released Wednesday by SpaceX show the payload fairing from the company’s Falcon Heavy rocket plunging back into the atmosphere after launch June 25, trailing a wake of haunting blue super-heated plasma before unfurling a parafoil and landing in the net of an offshore recovery ship.