Live coverage: SpaceX supply ship returns to Earth

Working overnight on Florida’s Space Coast, SpaceX technicians transferred a two-stage Falcon 9 rocket from the company’s commercial hangar a quarter-mile up the ramp to launch pad 39A early Saturday, positioning the kerosene-fueled booster for liftoff Sunday with a classified payload for the U.S. government’s National Reconnaissance Office.

SpaceX has postponed Wednesday’s scheduled launch from California’s Central Coast with 64 smallsats, electing to keep the Falcon 9 rocket on the ground until at least Sunday to wait for improved weather conditions.

In the final hours of a 340-day mission, Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko said goodbye to their crewmates and closed the hatch to the International Space Station on Tuesday, heading for a parachute-assisted touchdown in Kazakhstan a few hours later.