Live coverage: SpaceX cargo ship captured by space station’s robotic arm

Astronaut Mark Vande Hei and Japanese crewmate Norishige Kanai floated outside the International Space Station Friday, repositioned two robot arm grapple mechanisms following repair work last month and carried out a variety of “get-ahead” tasks before calling it a day.

The first 10 spacecraft for a planned U.S. military mega-constellation launched from California Sunday aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, setting in place the keystone for a multibillion-dollar network of hundreds of small satellites to improve defenses against hypersonic missiles and other emerging threats.

A Falcon 9 rocket soars skyward from Cape Canaveral carrying NASA’s TESS observatory on a mission to discover planets around other stars. This was the view from the Kennedy Space Center Press Site.