Live coverage: Kennedy Space Center to reopen Friday

SpaceX achieved a double success Friday with the launch of a Japanese communications satellite from Cape Canaveral, followed minutes later by the touchdown of the Falcon 9 rocket’s 15-story first stage booster on a ship in the Atlantic Ocean.

The Israeli company which owned a commercial communications satellite destroyed in an explosion last week at SpaceX’s launch pad in Florida will receive more than $200 million in payouts stemming from the incident, and hopes to purchase a replacement, officials said Monday.

A NASA instrument built to help astronomers learn about the structure and behavior of neutron stars, super-dense stellar skeletons left behind by massive explosions, has been mounted to an observation post outside the International Space Station after delivery aboard a SpaceX supply ship earlier this month.