Q&A with Elon Musk, SpaceX’s founder and CEO

Succeeding on a one-shot launch attempt before Hurricane Irma shuts down the Cape Canaveral spaceport, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket thundered into orbit Thursday with the U.S. Air Force’s X-37B spaceplane, a reusable robotic mini-shuttle that could stay aloft for years with clandestine on-board experiments.

A Russian Soyuz spacecraft featuring a variety of avionics upgrades and other changes to improve reliability and performance docked with the International Space Station early Saturday after a two-day orbital chase, bringing three fresh crew members to the lab complex.

SpaceX ignited a reused Falcon 9 first stage booster at Cape Canaveral’s Complex 40 launch pad Wednesday ahead of a planned space station resupply launch Dec. 12, a major step in restoring the repaired facility to service after a catastrophic explosion interrupted operations there last year.