Photos: Delta 4 lights up the sky for night owl launch

With a thundering, sky-lighting predawn blastoff from Cape Canaveral, a Falcon 9 rocket fired into orbit early Saturday with a Dragon cargo capsule in pursuit of the International Space Station. Minutes later, the rocket’s first stage booster fell from the sky and executed a pinpoint propulsive landing just offshore, setting the stage for another resupply mission for NASA this summer using the same vehicle.

SpaceX called off a planned launch attempt Saturday to deploy the next batch of satellites for the Starlink broadband network. Two commercial Earth-observing satellites for BlackSky are also awaiting a ride into orbit on the Falcon 9 rocket from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Two panels of managers and scientists presented details of SpaceX’s 16th operational resupply flight to the International Space Station on the eve of its launch aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral.