Live coverage: Falcon 9 disintegrates after launch

SpaceX’s first Crew Dragon spacecraft, fixed to the forward end of a Falcon 9 rocket, emerged Thursday from the company’s hangar at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for the quarter-mile journey to its launch mount at pad 39A, where liftoff is scheduled early Saturday on a critical test flight before astronauts strap into the ship later this year.

A Progress supply craft loaded with 3.1 tons of cargo lifted off Thursday from Kazakhstan, launching on a six-hour pursuit of the International Space Station culminating with a smooth docking to the research lab’s aft port.

Launch facilities at Cape Canaveral were spared any significant damage as Hurricane Dorian churned northward off Florida’s east coast earlier this week, and employees at the spaceport resumed their normal work Friday.