Photos: Launch boosts satellite for U.S. allies

SpaceX’s first Crew Dragon spacecraft, fixed to the forward end of a Falcon 9 rocket, emerged Thursday from the company’s hangar at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for the quarter-mile journey to its launch mount at pad 39A, where liftoff is scheduled early Saturday on a critical test flight before astronauts strap into the ship later this year.

China launched an optical stereo mapping satellite Sunday, using an upgraded version of the country’s Long March 3B rocket with an extended payload shroud to deliver the Earth-imaging spacecraft into orbit 300 miles above Earth.

Northrop Grumman’s Antares rocket will deliver a Cygnus supply ship into orbit Wednesday to begin a day-and-a-half pursuit of the International Space Station.