Live coverage: Kennedy Space Center to reopen Friday

Kennedy Space Center officials said Tuesday that Hurricane Matthew knocked out the main cooling system for the iconic Vehicle Assembly Building and surrounding structures, but they expect no lingering effects from the storm on NASA’s Space Launch System and Orion spaceship scheduled for their first full-scale test flight around the moon in 2018.

A commercial Dragon cargo craft wrapped up a two-day trip to the International Space Station on Monday with a glacial laser-guided final approach before astronauts grasped the supply ship with a robotic arm, completing the refurbished capsule’s second journey to the orbiting research complex.

SpaceX launched a Korean communications satellite from Florida on Monday aboard the company’s third Falcon 9 rocket flight of the month. Liftoff from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center occurred at 3:34 p.m. EDT (1934 GMT), and the Falcon 9’s first stage landed on a floating barge in the Atlantic Ocean a few minutes later.