Drone’s view of Sunday’s SpaceX rocket landing

The latest prototype of SpaceX’s  Starship launch vehicle — Starship SN10 — took off from the company’s South Texas test site and flew to an altitude of more than 30,000 feet Wednesday, then descended to a controlled vertical landing after two previous test vehicles crashed at touchdown. Minutes later, the 16-story test rocket exploded in a fireball, but the test flight appeared to be a major step forward in the early stages of the Starship program.

Rough seas in the Pacific Ocean will keep SpaceX’s Dragon cargo capsule in space a few days longer than planned, with the unpiloted supply ship’s return to Earth now set for Saturday hauling a load of research specimens from the International Space Station back to the ground.

SpaceX has delayed the next launch of a Falcon 9 rocket from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center until Sunday. The two-stage launcher will carry with another batch of 60 Starlink satellites into orbit.