Live coverage: Cygnus supply ship captured by space station robot arm

Fully fueled for a flight to the International Space Station later this month, SpaceX transferred the Crew Dragon “Resilience” spaceship Thursday to a hangar near pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center for attachment to its Falcon 9 launcher.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon capsule were raised vertical at launch pad 39A in Florida late Thursday, setting the stage for a launch day dress rehearsal Friday with NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken — the veteran space fliers assigned to the Crew Dragon’s first piloted mission later this year — before a critical in-flight test of the ship’s emergency escape system Saturday.

The first satellite in a new class of ultra-powerful communications satellites for Intelsat lifted off Wednesday aboard the first Ariane 5 flight of the year. Launch from French Guiana occurred at 2320 GMT (6:20 p.m. EST).