Live coverage: Falcon 9 disintegrates after launch

A Falcon 9 rocket powered by a first stage booster recovered after a launch in July is being readied for another flight Thursday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Falcon Heavy is returning to the hangar and the launch of the USSF-52 mission with the X-37B spaceplane is on hold. A ground issue scrubbed an earlier launch attempt and now required work on the vehicle itself.

Astronauts will not fly to the International Space Station on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spaceship until at least May 2018, NASA said this week, missing a previous target launch date at the end of next year.