Live coverage: Commercial Cygnus cargo craft arrives at space station

Watch as a Falcon 9 rocket with the first Crew Dragon capsule atop, briefly fired its engines for a crucial pre-launch test on Jan. 24, 2019.

A three-minute test flight Tuesday morning over Cape Canaveral will help ensure NASA’s Orion crew capsule — the vehicle being built to carry astronauts back to the moon — can safely escape from a catastrophic failure on launch.

The second orbital launch attempt by Chinese launch company iSpace failed shortly after liftoff Feb. 1, following a successful debut flight in 2019 that made iSpace the first private firm in China to put a payload into orbit.