Live coverage: Falcon Heavy launch slips until Wednesday at earliest

Virgin Galactic’s commercial SpaceShipTwo rocket plane made its highest and fastest flight to date Thursday, moving the company’s space tourism ambitions closer to reality more than three years after a fatal accident suspended powered test flights.

Riding a self-propelled transporter, an Orbital ATK Antares rocket rolled out to it launch pad Thursday on Virginia’s Eastern Shore for final preparations to send a Cygnus supply ship to the International Space Station.

Russian officials postponed the planned launch of a Proton rocket with an X-ray astronomy satellite Friday until no earlier than July 12 resolve a problem with an inadvertently drained battery on the vehicle.