Live coverage: Soyuz crew capsule departs station, lands in Kazakhstan

SpaceX conducted a static fire test of the SuperDraco abort thrusters on the company’s Crew Dragon spacecraft Wednesday afternoon at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

SpaceX test-fired the Crew Dragon spacecraft’s eight SuperDraco abort engines Wednesday at Cape Canaveral, paving the way for a high-altitude rocket escape test and demonstrating engineers have apparently fixed the problem that triggered an explosion during a similar ground firing in April.

NASA hopes to begin launching astronauts to the space station aboard Boeing and SpaceX capsules in the 2017 timeframe, but managers expect to still send crews up aboard Russian spacecraft as a hedge against problems that could force some astronauts to make an emergency landing.