Live coverage: Kennedy Space Center to reopen Friday

NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy’s family will be watching remotely from halfway around the world when he blasts off April 9 from Kazakhstan to begin a six-month expedition on the International Space Station.

Launching the U.S. Navy’s fifth MUOS mobile communications satellite, a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket thundered away from Cape Canaveral today.

A recovery team stationed in the Pacific Ocean west of Baja California secured NASA’s Orion spacecraft and winched it into the flooded well deck of a U.S. Navy transport ship after the capsule splashed down into the sea to wrap up a successful four-and-a-half hour test flight.