Falcon 9 abort seen from press site

An accident Saturday during an abort engine test on a Crew Dragon test vehicle at Cape Canaveral sent a reddish-orange plume into the sky visible for miles around, a setback for SpaceX and NASA as teams prepare the capsule for its first mission with astronauts.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is set for liftoff from Cape Canaveral on Thursday, heading due east over the Atlantic Ocean to deliver the Es’hail 2 communications satellite into orbit around 32 minutes later.

After years of anticipation, SpaceX launched the first test flight of its full-scale Starship rocket Thursday from South Texas, but the mission ended four minutes later as the vehicle veered out of control and self-destructed over the Gulf of Mexico following multiple engine failures.