Live coverage: Falcon 9 disintegrates after launch

Veteran astronauts Soichi Noguchi and Shannon Walker have been assigned to fly to the International Space Station on SpaceX’s second piloted Crew Dragon mission later this year, joining commander Mike Hopkins and astronaut Victor Glover on a planned six-month expedition in orbit.

A new animation of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket set for a debut flight later this year shows how the powerful launcher will blast off from Kennedy Space Center’s famed Apollo-era launch pad 39A, and could eventually fly back to Florida’s Space Coast for refurbishment and reuse.

Russian ground crews are readying a robotic Progress cargo freighter for launch Thursday on an expedited trek to the International Space Station that should take less than three-and-a-half hours from liftoff to docking, cutting in half the normal transit time.