Live coverage: H-2B rocket launch scrubbed after fire

Crowned with a European-built communications satellite designed to broadcast television over the Americas, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with a previously-flown first stage booster lifted off Kennedy Space Center’s launch pad 39A Wednesday at 6:53 p.m. EDT (2253 GMT).

A detached electrical connector on the second stage of Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket caused a failure on a July 4 mission that destroyed seven small commercial satellites, but the company said Friday it is on track to resume launching before the end of August.

Taking another step toward flying space tourists to the edge of space, Jeff Bezos’s space company Blue Origin again flew its New Shepard suborbital booster Thursday with a package of microgravity research experiments.