Live coverage: Falcon 9 disintegrates after launch

Engineers from SpaceX, Boeing and Inmarsat spent the last few weeks preparing a Falcon 9 rocket and the Inmarsat 5 F4 communications satellite for liftoff from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket exploded in the final minutes of a simulated countdown at Cape Canaveral on Thursday, destroying the booster and an Israeli communications satellite valued at nearly $200 million.

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft made a touch and go landing on asteroid Bennu at 6:12 p.m. EDT (2212 GMT) Tuesday. The craft aimed to collect samples from the asteroid’s gravely surface for return to Earth in 2023 for scientists to search for clues about the origins and evolution of the solar system.