Live coverage: Veteran three-man crew docks with space station

SpaceX’s final Falcon 9 launch of the year carried a classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office, the U.S. government’s spy satellite agency. SpaceX aborted a launch attempt Thursday morning to assess a second stage sensor reading, but the Falcon 9 successfully lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center at 9 a.m. EST (1400 GMT) Saturday. The rocket’s stage landed back at Cape Canaveral eight minutes later.

The program manager in charge of Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule program said Friday that additional checks would have uncovered problems with the spaceship’s software that plagued the craft’s first unpiloted orbital test flight in December, but he pushed back against suggestions that Boeing engineers took shortcuts during ground testing.

Entering the final months of a 12-year mission, Europe’s Rosetta spacecraft is again moving closer to the oddball comet that has engaged scientists since it arrived in 2014, heading for a controlled “smash” landing on the comet’s rugged charcoal-colored surface at the end of September.