Live coverage: SpaceX supply ship returns to Earth

NASA has signed a $490 million agreement with the Russian government to ferry U.S. astronauts to and from the International Space Station in 2018 and 2019 as a hedge in case of delays to Boeing and SpaceX crew capsules.

The Falcon 9 launched a day before the company begins publicly trading on the Nasdaq. Liftoff from pad 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California happened at 8:05:59 a.m. PDT (11:05:59 a.m. EDT / 1505:59 UTC).

A decade in the making, the core stage for NASA’s first Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket rolled into the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center Thursday to join up with twin solid rocket boosters and an Orion capsule for an unpiloted test flight around the moon.