Live coverage: Falcon 9 disintegrates after launch

Hours after launching a batch of cargo and provisions to the International Space Station on Tuesday, SpaceX ground teams wheeled another Falcon 9 rocket into the hangar at Cape Canaveral for a commercial satellite launch set for April 27.

The next test of a critical safety system on SpaceX’s human-rated Dragon spaceship will be delayed, likely until some time next year, as the company adjusts the development schedule for the new commercial crew capsule designed to take astronauts to the International Space Station.

A commercial SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule packed with a robot assistant for the International Space Station’s crew, pouches of extra strong coffee, and a NASA science instrument designed to track the health of plants on Earth left Cape Canaveral aboard a Falcon 9 rocket Friday on a three-day pursuit of the orbiting research lab.