Falcon 9’s launch failure viewed from KSC press site

A Crew Dragon capsule ferried four astronauts into space Sunday night after a rumbling departure from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, setting off on a 27-hour pursuit of the International Space Station on SpaceX’s first operational crew rotation flight to the orbiting outpost.

The next three-person crew will launch to the International Space Station sometime between July 23 and July 25 after a two-month delay triggered by the failure of an unmanned Progress resupply mission in April, Russian officials said Tuesday.

Sunday’s Falcon 9 rocket failure may have blemished SpaceX’s success record, but the mishap will not keep the entrepreneurial space company from competing for U.S. military launch contracts with rival United Launch Alliance, according to an Air Force general.