Falcon 9 / TESS launch replays

An unpiloted space plane developed by Sierra Nevada Corp. will join cargo carriers built by SpaceX and Orbital ATK to resupply the International Space Station beginning in 2019, NASA announced Thursday.

A little more than a year after the Falcon Heavy rocket’s first test flight, SpaceX teams on Florida’s Space Coast are readying the world’s most powerful operational launcher for its second mission Thursday with a commercial communications satellite.

SpaceX founder and chief executive Elon Musk said Thursday that the company’s recovery fleet in the Atlantic Ocean recovered the two halves of the Falcon Heavy’s payload shroud after the heavy-lifter’s second launch from the Kennedy Space Center. Musk said the company plans to reuse the fairing for the first time later this year.